To those moaning about concert prices...

Wazmeister

F&@kin VW... Three chords and the truth...

bingefeller

Gassage said:

Wazmeister said:

Yeh, I know... Didn't the mighty Pink Floyd get sponsored by VW in the mid 90s ???

Guy Pratt wrote about this in his book- needless to say it was totally Nick Mason driven, the rest of the band were amused and David just shrugged. Nick spent the entire pre-tour liaising with VW .....

lol

John_P

Guy's book is brilliant - I must reread it.    When he singed my copy we got into a weird argument about iPhones when we should have been talking about his playing.   Very funny chap and one of my favourite bass players - his back catalogue of hits is amazing.

Gassage

John_P said:

Guy's book is brilliant - I must reread it.    When he singed my copy we got into a weird argument about iPhones when we should have been talking about his playing.   Very funny chap and one of my favourite bass players - his back catalogue of hits is amazing.

Danny1969

Floyd were sponsored by a French drink company in the early seventies ..... Gingin drinks or something like that. 

I honest don't believe artist lose money when playing live unless the production cost of the set is too much ..... like it was for the Wall gigs in 80 \ 81. If DG doesn't make a tidy profit on this mini tour then someone other than him is being paid too much

TheOtherDennis

I'd like to contribute something a bit more meaningful to this debate than the below, but @randomhandclaps has said most of what I'd like to say already.

But I will say this - I have never, and would never, knowingly download anything illegally in my life. As a photographer, I know EXACTLY how it feels for someone to download my stuff without paying for it. It's why I'm a part-time photographer, not a full-time one, because I can no longer make it pay.

And unlike DG, I can't do tours.

Having said that, if DG can get away with charging £100 for a ticket, good luck to him. My real beef, as with so many others on here, is with the ticket agencies who use bots to buy up as many of the tickets as they can only to whack them straight onto their own secondary sites for waaaaay much more than the face value. How can anyone with a calculator, never mind a conscience, do a deal with Ticketbastard and their ilk?

As a lot of other people are using comparisons form the past, here's one for the present. I've just bought two tickets to go and see Kate Rusby in Northampton as a birthday present for my missus (the gig is two days before the OH's b'day in April). I rang the box office direct and they charged me £17 for the ticket, 75p (correct - £0.75) for posting and because my wife is disabled, I get in free as her carer. So I voluntarily added a donation to the theatre running costs when asked.

£17, plus 75p to post the tickets out, and a free seat to go with it. When we went to see her at the Warwick Arts Centre a few years back, I think it was £22 plus no cover charge, and a free seat for being her carer. She put on a fabulous show using music, nothing else. Even the lights were nice and minimal, but still. Less than 40 quid for not one but two gigs.

Last time I looked (at a documentary about La Rusby) she had her own home studio and could afford to do charity bashes at her local cricket club to help them build a new pavilion or summat.

Ok, Kate will never use the lasers and monster PAs that artists like DG will (nothing against the DG approach, it's a big part of why people go to see him), but does his crew really cost more than 5 times as much to support at a single venue for five straight nights as Kate's does on a full UK tour of 19 dates at 19 different places as big as Sidmouth, Ashby de la Zouch and Macclesfield, amongst others?