Reading rock festival 1977 - price seems amazing now!

axisus

Friday £3
Saturday £4
Sunday £4
Whole thing £7.95!

Some cool bands as well. How did any of them make any money??

lovestrat74

How many pints could you get for 8 quid in 77? Then we have a barometer 

axisus

lovestrat74 said:

How many pints could you get for 8 quid in 77? Then we have a barometer 

40p apparently

EricTheWeary

According to the Bank of England that weekend should cost £47 now. 

Guitar_Slinger

1977 prices, eh.  

boogieman

I’ve still got ticket stubs for several 1970s gigs I went to. 

Black Sabbath 1971. Albert Hall. 60p. 

Led Zep. 1971 Wembley. All dayer with several support bands and circus acts in between.75p . 

LZ. 1975. Earls Court. £2.50. 

monquixote

In those days gigs were mostly an advert for your highly profitable album sales

Now for many bands albums area loss maker for your hopefully profitable live shows which is why they are so expensive.

axisus

@boogieman Wow, insane prices! I got into gigs in the 80s, and I thought that was cheap. Saw bands for £1.50 - £3.

usedtobe

My brother was there, but I was too young. Got to go with him in 78, though. Went again in 79, and 80, and once more in the 80s. Edit: 83. Not been back since, and wouldn’t fancy it nowadays. Great times, though!

Sassafras

I always get into festivals for nothing by donning a chef's outfit or a security guard uniform. No-one challenges me.
It's all in the attitude you project.

kossofffan

still can't post pics from imgur but anyway I did the weekend camping in '83 at Reading for £15.95, and Rush, leaning at the front of the stage at the NEC same year for £6. Crazy how prices have changed.

Philtre

£7.95? Bit of a rip-off. Should have gone in 1976 for £6.95.

Bygone_Tones

Seems very strange to see 'Ultravox' included with those bands.

thecolourbox

axisus said:

Friday £3
Saturday £4
Sunday £4
Whole thing £7.95!

Some cool bands as well. How did any of them make any money??

Yeah but... Think about the exposure you'd get!

Strat_a_tat_tat

Bygone_Tones said:

Seems very strange to see 'Ultravox' included with those bands.

I guess that would've been the earlier incarnation of Ultravox... with John Foxx on vocals... not Midge Ure.  

Sporky

I remember feeling like a miser when I gave up on festivals - that was when they broke the £40-for-the-weekend mark. 

ArchtopDave

I went in 1968 - £1.25 a day, or £2.25 for the weekend.

There were other things, which were very different then as well. A friend of mine asked me (2 days before the Festival) if I wanted to go with him, as he had a spare seat in his car. We simply turned up, as most did, and bought our tickets at the Entrance to the the site. Then went to the camp site, and easily picked a spot for our tents.

 The sky was blue and the sun shone. Easy to find a spot on the grass and lie out at most 20 yards from the Stage. This meant you had a reasonable view because there was just the stage - no big screens to watch. So what did we have to put up with on Saturday? Early on, a good, but unknown to most, group - Deep Purple, followed by Marc Bolan (in Tyranosaurus Rex guise), Ritchie Havens, Jeff Beck Group, Ten Years After, The Nice, Ginger Baker playing drum duets(??) with Phil Seaman - fortunately, after a couple of numbers, he brought on a guest guitarist - some bloke called Eric Clapton. The headline act was Arthur Brown, who rather pissed people off by turning up an hour and a quarter late, so being lowered from a helicopter was greeted with relief rather than applause.

EricTheWeary

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

Bygone_Tones said:

Seems very strange to see 'Ultravox' included with those bands.

I guess that would've been the earlier incarnation of Ultravox... with John Foxx on vocals... not Midge Ure.  

I vaguely wondered if it was Midge as he later went on to play for Lizzy and work with Phil.
By no means a heavy rock line up despite Lizzy and Aerosmith. 

thecolourbox

EricTheWeary said:

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

Bygone_Tones said:

Seems very strange to see 'Ultravox' included with those bands.

I guess that would've been the earlier incarnation of Ultravox... with John Foxx on vocals... not Midge Ure.  

I vaguely wondered if it was Midge as he later went on to play for Lizzy and work with Phil.
By no means a heavy rock line up despite Lizzy and Aerosmith. 

And 90s/00s boy band Blue

EricTheWeary

thecolourbox said:

EricTheWeary said:

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

Bygone_Tones said:

Seems very strange to see 'Ultravox' included with those bands.

I guess that would've been the earlier incarnation of Ultravox... with John Foxx on vocals... not Midge Ure.  

I vaguely wondered if it was Midge as he later went on to play for Lizzy and work with Phil.
By no means a heavy rock line up despite Lizzy and Aerosmith. 

And 90s/00s boy band Blue

And Enid from The Walking Dead. 

iseverynamegone

£25 for 3 nights at reading in 85 to catch the last Alice Cooper welcome to my nightmare show. 

Parents were not not so pleased as a 14 yr old me didn’t ask them in advance, I left them a note to tell them where I was and when I would be back. 

That was was punishment for them not letting me go see Rush in 83 at NEC someone mentioned earlier for £3.  Still mention that every xmas to mum as one of the greatest disappointments of my life .