Being a music superfan can be an expensive business, particularly when you factor in the cost of attending live concerts.
Touring and festivals are now the main source of income for music acts, and ticket prices for the biggest artists tend not to be cheap.
That is certainly the case if you miss out on tickets when they are first released on sale and are forced to use a resale ticket site.
According to a recent study by Betway, the cheapest resale tickets to see some artists will set you back hundreds of pounds.
However, the study did reveal that rock and indie music fans do not have things quite as bad a people who follow other music genres.
Using a list of the most streamed artists on Spotify, the report assessed several elements of being a music fan including the cost of concert tickets.
Of the top 25 artists in the ‘most expensive’ list only just one from the rock/indie category had their cheapest resale tickets priced at more than £100.
That dubious honour fell to Metallica, although the American rock icons would rightly argue that they do more than most to give fans value for money.
They regularly host free meet and greet events with fans after gigs and have a strong link with the Make-A-Wish Foundation where they make dreams come true for critically ill children.
For the purposes of the study, Elton John was also placed in the rock/indie category. His cheapest resale ticket price of £77.19 was the 14th highest out of the top 25 acts.
Twenty One Pilots (£73.99), Arctic Monkeys (£53.99), Coldplay (£43.99) and Queen (£36.52) are the other rock/indie acts who feature on the list.
In all cases, you would be hard pushed to argue that their resale ticket prices do not offer great value for money when compared with other artists.
For example, the cheapest resale tickets to watch South Korean boyband BTS perform at one of their recent shows in the United Kingdom were priced at £678.94.
Adele was another act with ridiculously priced resale tickets at £548.63 along with Drake (£405.87), Miley Cyrus (£283.03) and Olivia Rodrigo (£170.15).
Some rock/indie acts have rallied against resale ticket sites in recent times as they strive to ensure they give fans a fair deal.
They include Sam Fender, who issued a statement on social media after discovering tickets for his gigs in Newcastle next year were changing hands for more than £1,100.
Fender said that fans tickets bought and sold on sites such as Viagogo are not valid and would not be accepted by staff at the venue.
Quite how this would be policed was not made clear, but Fender’s comments demonstrate the disdain with which he holds resale ticket sites.
While artists from many other genres appear disinterested in questioning resale ticket prices, Fender has clearly not forgotten his roots.
2018 ·
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