“It comes down to the stark difference between the inside and the outside,” an op-ed from the Springsteen Backstreets fan site said in July, summing up the shock many fans felt when prices for his current tour went up. much more than expected. Some floor seats in Boston cost nearly $5,000 each. “So many fans who have always been to the shows, who have always been part of This Thing of Ours, can’t go anymore, won’t be inside, won’t be part of the conversation, just because they don’t cannot pay the cost to see the Boss.
Months later, following a backlash from his audience, Springsteen told Rolling Stone that instead of his usual practice of charging a little less than his peers, he chose this time to “do whatever the world does”.
“I know it was unpopular with some fans. But if there are any complaints on the way out, you can get your money back,” Springsteen said.
That response seemed flippant enough to Backstreets editor Christopher Phillips that he quoted it when he announced last month that Backstreets would be closing after 43 years. Leaving one of the most dedicated pillars of his fanbase feeling “dispirited, discouraged and, yes, disillusioned” as he closed shop is a sign of how damaging it has been for Springsteen’s relationship with his audience, or part of it, treat their fans like other stars do.
Not so long ago, no pop musician could have gotten away with charging so much. When rock ‘n’ roll came of age with the baby boomers in the 1960s, tickets were cheap: Seeing Jimi Hendrix at Boston Common in 1969 would have cost you $3, or about $25 today. It was the result of generalizations about socioeconomic class—rock was not considered or priced as “high culture”—and demographics.
“It was assumed that the average person going to see a rock ‘n’ roll show was probably a teenager or not much older than that,” said Steve Waksman, professor of music and American studies at Smith College, who recounts the Lind spins in her 2022 book “Live Music in America: A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé.” “So you had to keep the prices in a range where you wouldn’t go over the limit of what they could afford, because you weren’t going to sell those tickets to 35-year-old middle-class people.”
As baby boomers got older and accumulated more purchasing power, prices rose. The same goes for perks: premium stuff, like backstage encounters and VIP ticket packages. Not only did these add-ons generate additional revenue for artists, but they created an air of exclusivity for fans willing to pay for them. As Barnum knew, rarity is lucrative – even when fabricated by artist managers or tour operators.
“When you get a Taylor Swift or a Beyoncé or whatever, obviously there’s massive, incalculable demand,” said Tony Margherita, who fronted alternative rock band Wilco from 1995 to 2017. “But $1,000 for one guy who works in a hedge fund is a different thing than a student or me or you or millions of people in between.”
Pricing tickets based on real-time demand is apparently a way to thwart resellers and direct money to the artist rather than the resale market – a rationale offered by Springsteen in the Rolling interview. Stone. “The ticket broker or someone is going to take that money. I’m like, ‘Hey, why wouldn’t this money go to the guys who are going to be up there sweating three hours a night for this?’ »
Yet concert tickets selling for thousands of dollars each create a different kind of scarcity, one that turns audiences into a self-selected group with resources beyond the reach of many people. Buying a ticket for Springsteen, Swift or Beyoncé not only requires cash, but also access to pre-sales, often through fan clubs or credit card companies. Fans also need sufficient technical knowledge to navigate the online ticketing process, and not luck. Demand for Swift tickets was so high that her entire “Eras” tour – including three shows in May at Gillette Stadium – sold out in presale, before the general public even had a chance to purchase them.
“It’s another way to create a line between people who come in and people who don’t,” Waksman said. “Part of it is financial, but it’s also about information. It’s a big line between the haves and the have-nots.
Swift fans have largely directed their anger at Ticketmaster rather than the singer, who posted a statement on Instagram criticizing a process that has left much of her audience frustrated and ticketless. The presale outage also prompted a congressional hearing.
The only place many megastar musicians interact directly with fans these days is in concert. When the have-nots are excluded and most of the crowd comes from the same upper tax brackets, the performer on stage might as well be looking at themselves in a socio-economic mirror.
“It doesn’t seem like a lot of fun,” said Margherita, who thinks it’s smart for musicians who value their relationship with fans to find ways to accommodate as many fans as possible. “You have to be very aware of trying to create avenues for all kinds of people to afford to see you. It’s tricky to do. I’m not saying it’s easy, but I think it’s doable. »
Even though the big names suck all the oxygen at the top of the concert food chain, there are alternatives. Jonathan Wynn, a sociologist at UMass Amherst, notes that there’s plenty of smaller-scale live music out there that won’t drain your savings account. After all, even Springsteen started playing in bars.
“For every Springsteen, there are 3,000 singer-songwriters who would like 20 people to show up in their little venue,” Wynn said. “Are you going to spend $5,000 on a ticket?” How many Tuesday night shows could you see for that at a local club? »
