Ticket Prices

riley540

The band Coldplay is going to be in Seattle next year so I decided I would buy tickets for the lady and myself. $221 before fees. I am not seeing Coldplay now. I thought they would be a group to make tickets reachable for their fans.

This is why Pearl Jam is the shit and you can be on the rail for under $100. Love Pearl Jam. I can't afford any other concert

riley540

$221 per ticket that is. About $500 for two tickets after fees

screaminreel

DMB is the same way, on the rail for under 100. I was buying Bon Jovi tickets today and entire lower bowl, along with floor was 155 before fees. Stupid.

riley540

screaminreel said:

DMB is the same way, on the rail for under 100. I was buying Bon Jovi tickets today and entire lower bowl, along with floor was 155 before fees. Stupid.

I just don't get it. To sit in the first few rows for Coldplay you have to get the VIP ticket which ranges from $500 to $700 each. Not cool at all. The band doesn't have to do that :(

kasedoug

They're basically just trying to cut out the secondary market by pricing their tickets at what they perceive the market value to be. At $100 per ticket, lots more people would want tickets than there would be tickets available so when those tickets are sold out, fans that still want them would have to find tickets on the secondary market priced at those higher amounts.

riley540

kasedoug said:

They're basically just trying to cut out the secondary market by pricing their tickets at what they perceive the market value to be. At $100 per ticket, lots more people would want tickets than there would be tickets available so when those tickets are sold out, fans that still want them would have to find tickets on the secondary market priced at those higher amounts.

Louis CK the Comedian has a good solution for his live shows. I buought tickets to see him $50 each for great seats. I have to show up at the venue with ID to get my tickets the day of. No stub hub or anything like that can sell tickets for his shows.
Even temple of the dog tickets for Seattle are insanely high. They should just make it so you have to show ID to enter. All the tickets would have been sold to true fans for a fair price of that were the case

kasedoug

riley540 said:

Even temple of the dog tickets for Seattle are insanely high. They should just make it so you have to show ID to enter. All the tickets would have been sold to true fans for a fair price of that were the case

That's because there are a TON more people that want Temple of the Dog tickets for Seattle than there are available. Supply and demand.
Look at LA tickets for TOTD. You can get tickets on StubHub for about half price in certain sections. There are multiple threads/posts on the board of people offering LA tix and they're dipping below what they paid for them because they can't get rid of them. Shouldn't it be the same as Seattle? Same band and show. No, because you have a drastic difference in both venue capacity and demand due to Seattle being a hometown show.
In your example of the Coldplay VIP tickets being priced $500-$700 for the rows closest to the stage, that's due to demand. Everybody wants to be close to the stage so they scale up the price until they kill off excess demand and only the people willing to spend that much get the tickets. If they sold the tickets up close for cheap, you'd have hundreds of people that want them per every ticket available. They're pricing them so that there isn't excess demand at those prices.
Guns N' Roses tried that with their tour and when the demand wasn't there, they had to slash prices in a lot of markets.
Speaking of Coldplay, I bought tickets 10 years ago through a Ticketmaster auction. The proceeds went to charity, but they did it directly through Ticketmaster for the best seats in the house. I really wanted to take a girl I was seeing at the time who loves Coldplay, so I bid $200+ for good seats up close. It was worth it to me and I got them because at that amount, it wasn't worth it to the other bidders.
I love that PJ keeps their tickets prices lower/fair and I hope they always do, but you have situations where that creates a lot of excess demand (GA Pit, bigger markets like NYC, novelty of ballpark shows). Even within the same venue, you get differing demand since tickets in the upper level or behind the stage in an arena are priced the same as pit tickets that can get you on the rail. They may be the same price, but they're definitely not the same value.

Omaha_Jammer

I saw the prices Coldplay were asking and my jaw hit the floor. Then I laughed. Those are U2 prices. There will be a LOT of empty seats. I don't have anything against Coldplay, or have a bad thing to say about anyone who enjoys Coldplay...but in the grand scheme of things, they're barely relevant anymore. Whomever is helping them decide their ticket price-points has let them down BIG TIME because it's not going to go well for Coldplay, it's not going to go well for the promoter(s), and it's not going to go well for the venues. Laughable. Also, as others have mentioned...huge props to PJ for not being douche-nozzles when it comes to ticket prices.

Think about this. Imagine you pay nearly $500 for a pair Coldplay tickets...and mind you...even some of the UPPER BOWL tickets are at this price level (!!!). Imagine that they have a shitty/mediocre show. It happens. That person is NEVER going to another Coldplay show.
I've been to 30+ PJ shows...and, while it's not the norm, a handful of them have been rather "meh". Again...this happens. But if I only spent $80-$100 for a ticket...I'm willing to give it another go, FOR SURE. My point is...a band like Coldplay charging these prices is an unsustainable business model, plain and simple. Maybe they truly don't plan on continuing as a band after this tour and just decided "fuck it. let's cash in"...but even so...yeesh.

riley540

Omaha_Jammer said:

I saw the prices Coldplay were asking and my jaw hit the floor. Then I laughed. Those are U2 prices. There will be a LOT of empty seats. I don't have anything against Coldplay, or have a bad thing to say about anyone who enjoys Coldplay...but in the grand scheme of things, they're barely relevant anymore. Whomever is helping them decide their ticket price-points has let them down BIG TIME because it's not going to go well for Coldplay, it's not going to go well for the promoter(s), and it's not going to go well for the venues. Laughable.

I enjoy Coldplay, I was thinking $80-$100 for a ticket for a good seat. No way I could justify loved $200. Even David Gilmour of Pink Floyd was under $150 for a good seat. And he's a top notch performer. If you want me to pay $500 for a ticket to a show, Jimi Henrix better be back from the dead, headlining that thing

JOEJOEJOE

I think Coldplay is annoying, yet they did manage to fill the Rose Bowl for 2 nights this past summer....much of their fan base are casual fans who don't go to too many concerts....similar to thew Adele fan base.

AceCool

To each their own, and all. $200 per ticket to see Coldplay?!? I can drive to the hardware store and score a $10 screwdriver that I could then jam into my ears and receive equal or better enjoyment than the Coldplay concert.

SR91748

Bummer. I'd like to see Coldplay in Seattle, but I won't pay "lifetime experience" type prices. Appreciate the tip that they're in town. I like what Chris Martin is doing with Global Citizen.

riley540

SR91748 said:

Bummer. I'd like to see Coldplay in Seattle, but I won't pay "lifetime experience" type prices. Appreciate the tip that they're in town. I like what Chris Martin is doing with Global Citizen.

They are playing Century Link which is a massive venue. I'm curious to see if it sells out or not. $90 will get me a seat that makes the band look like ants

kasedoug

riley540 said:

SR91748 said:

Bummer. I'd like to see Coldplay in Seattle, but I won't pay "lifetime experience" type prices. Appreciate the tip that they're in town. I like what Chris Martin is doing with Global Citizen.

They are playing Century Link which is a massive venue. I'm curious to see if it sells out or not. $90 will get me a seat that makes the band look like ants

As Joe pointed out above, they sold out the Rose Bowl two nights over, which is a much larger stadium than Century Link.

shawnb199

Some shows / seats may be quite a bit more expensive, but Coldplay is actually one of the more affordable average ticket prices among top acts. They have the 8th highest ticket prices among this year's top 10 tours, and average ticket prices are about 25% cheaper than Springsteen:

http://www.pollstarpro.com/files/Charts2016/2016MidYearTop100WorldwideTours.pdf

Zod

Yah we paid a bit more to see GNR in Seattle this summer. All the floor tix, and the first 4 sections of the lower bowl were all $250 USD before TM fees. It was insane. It was a bucket list thing so we got pit tix, but I wouldn't pay that much a 2nd time.

I heard Coldplay was playing BC place in Vancouver and I was surprised. I didn't realize they were that popular. I even saw U2 not sell out BC Place once (back in '97). I guess you don't need to sell it out though. There must be some capacity between an arena and a stadium show where you break even, and then go ahead. Way harder to scalp tickets for stadium shows because of the ticket supply.

Is it only the front rows for coldplay that are that expensive?

patkelly12

kasedoug said:

riley540 said:

Even temple of the dog tickets for Seattle are insanely high. They should just make it so you have to show ID to enter. All the tickets would have been sold to true fans for a fair price of that were the case

That's because there are a TON more people that want Temple of the Dog tickets for Seattle than there are available. Supply and demand.
Look at LA tickets for TOTD. You can get tickets on StubHub for about half price in certain sections. There are multiple threads/posts on the board of people offering LA tix and they're dipping below what they paid for them because they can't get rid of them. Shouldn't it be the same as Seattle? Same band and show. No, because you have a drastic difference in both venue capacity and demand due to Seattle being a hometown show.
In your example of the Coldplay VIP tickets being priced $500-$700 for the rows closest to the stage, that's due to demand. Everybody wants to be close to the stage so they scale up the price until they kill off excess demand and only the people willing to spend that much get the tickets. If they sold the tickets up close for cheap, you'd have hundreds of people that want them per every ticket available. They're pricing them so that there isn't excess demand at those prices.
Guns N' Roses tried that with their tour and when the demand wasn't there, they had to slash prices in a lot of markets.
Speaking of Coldplay, I bought tickets 10 years ago through a Ticketmaster auction. The proceeds went to charity, but they did it directly through Ticketmaster for the best seats in the house. I really wanted to take a girl I was seeing at the time who loves Coldplay, so I bid $200+ for good seats up close. It was worth it to me and I got them because at that amount, it wasn't worth it to the other bidders.
I love that PJ keeps their tickets prices lower/fair and I hope they always do, but you have situations where that creates a lot of excess demand (GA Pit, bigger markets like NYC, novelty of ballpark shows). Even within the same venue, you get differing demand since tickets in the upper level or behind the stage in an arena are priced the same as pit tickets that can get you on the rail. They may be the same price, but they're definitely not the same value.

I did the exact same thing for Coldplay ten years ago. Won a TM auction for 3rd row. They don't do those anymore. Now its all Platinum dynamic pricing and they shift the prices around based on the demand on the onsale.

Omaha_Jammer

riley540 said:

SR91748 said:

Bummer. I'd like to see Coldplay in Seattle, but I won't pay "lifetime experience" type prices. Appreciate the tip that they're in town. I like what Chris Martin is doing with Global Citizen.

They are playing Century Link which is a massive venue. I'm curious to see if it sells out or not. $90 will get me a seat that makes the band look like ants

ZERO chance this sells out. They may hold back tickets to create the illusion of a sellout....and then release a crap-ton of tickets in the few weeks leading up to the show...but there will be a cornucopia of empty seats.

riley540

Zod said:

Yah we paid a bit more to see GNR in Seattle this summer. All the floor tix, and the first 4 sections of the lower bowl were all $250 USD before TM fees. It was insane. It was a bucket list thing so we got pit tix, but I wouldn't pay that much a 2nd time.

I heard Coldplay was playing BC place in Vancouver and I was surprised. I didn't realize they were that popular. I even saw U2 not sell out BC Place once (back in '97). I guess you don't need to sell it out though. There must be some capacity between an arena and a stadium show where you break even, and then go ahead. Way harder to scalp tickets for stadium shows because of the ticket supply.

Is it only the front rows for coldplay that are that expensive?

All lower bowl and all field tickets are $221 before fees. Then they have VIP tickets for the first 25 rows it looks like. It gets you a good seat, a poster, and early entry for like $525.. not worth it at all!!

Zod

riley540 said:

Zod said:

Yah we paid a bit more to see GNR in Seattle this summer. All the floor tix, and the first 4 sections of the lower bowl were all $250 USD before TM fees. It was insane. It was a bucket list thing so we got pit tix, but I wouldn't pay that much a 2nd time.

I heard Coldplay was playing BC place in Vancouver and I was surprised. I didn't realize they were that popular. I even saw U2 not sell out BC Place once (back in '97). I guess you don't need to sell it out though. There must be some capacity between an arena and a stadium show where you break even, and then go ahead. Way harder to scalp tickets for stadium shows because of the ticket supply.

Is it only the front rows for coldplay that are that expensive?

All lower bowl and all field tickets are $221 before fees. Then they have VIP tickets for the first 25 rows it looks like. It gets you a good seat, a poster, and early entry for like $525.. not worth it at all!!

lol why do you need early entry if you have a seat and guaranteed a poster? lol. Yah that's crazy. I don't even find floor seats are very good past row 20 (and I'm 6'2). Sounds like they're even worse than GNR for tickets.... who'd ever thought that. I'm still not sure they're popular enough to do a stadium tour though. Outside of the big big cities in the US, it'll be interesting to see if resale values drop like they did for GNR.

buck502000

And there used to be a way to stick it to the Man, it was called rock 'n roll

MG79478

I saw coldplay in London this summer, I think it was about £80. They are decent performers, their lights are cool, but all of their songs sound the same.

kasedoug said:

They're basically just trying to cut out the secondary market by pricing their tickets at what they perceive the market value to be. At $100 per ticket, lots more people would want tickets than there would be tickets available so when those tickets are sold out, fans that still want them would have to find tickets on the secondary market priced at those higher amounts.

I wish PJ would do this. If you want front row, simply pay for it.

PP193448

I've seen Coldplay about 6-7 years ago. They put on a great show. But the last 2 albums suck and I didn't buy them after previewing them on iTunes. They are now pop music in my opinion. Would not spend more than $30 to see them now, unless they guarantee to not play anything off the last 2 albums and stuck to their roots for future music.

JojoRice

I'm ordering Green Day tickets tomorrow through their fan club sale and prices are $50-$60 for the entire arena including the pit. Definitely a great deal as well.

Last week, I ordered Beach Boys tickets for my wife and they were $90 each.

tweedyfanjen

Wow, Coldplay. I saw them for the first time back in 2001 after winning free tickets off the radio. Tiny, tiny venue and really small crowd. Saw them a few times over the next few years but lost interest once they hit the big, big time. I had no idea their tix were going for that much. Go figure.

buck502000

Parachutes lead me to believe they might be the next Radiohead -- I was sadly mistaken :(

lolobugg

tweedyfanjen said:

Wow, Coldplay. I saw them for the first time back in 2001 after winning free tickets off the radio. Tiny, tiny venue and really small crowd. Saw them a few times over the next few years but lost interest once they hit the big, big time. I had no idea their tix were going for that much. Go figure.

I had the same experience. saw them in a club in Atlanta in 2000/2001 (cancelled) and then in Charlotte(2002/2003). It was a good show. Saw them again in 2005 and it was a fucking joke.... never saw them again.....wait..i saw them at GCF last year. they were seriously lame. don't pay that much to see them in concert. save your money and support smaller bands that deserve it.

Suziemay

Omaha_Jammer said:

riley540 said:

SR91748 said:

Bummer. I'd like to see Coldplay in Seattle, but I won't pay "lifetime experience" type prices. Appreciate the tip that they're in town. I like what Chris Martin is doing with Global Citizen.

They are playing Century Link which is a massive venue. I'm curious to see if it sells out or not. $90 will get me a seat that makes the band look like ants

ZERO chance this sells out. They may hold back tickets to create the illusion of a sellout....and then release a crap-ton of tickets in the few weeks leading up to the show...but there will be a cornucopia of empty seats.

They will totally sell out. We may not like them, but plenty of people do, and more people like Coldplay than Pearl Jam. If you trust Wikipedia, Coldplay has sold "over 80 million records worldwide". In contrast, Pearl Jam has sold "an estimated 60 million [records] worldwide".

lolobugg

Suziemay said:

Omaha_Jammer said:

riley540 said:

SR91748 said:

Bummer. I'd like to see Coldplay in Seattle, but I won't pay "lifetime experience" type prices. Appreciate the tip that they're in town. I like what Chris Martin is doing with Global Citizen.

They are playing Century Link which is a massive venue. I'm curious to see if it sells out or not. $90 will get me a seat that makes the band look like ants

ZERO chance this sells out. They may hold back tickets to create the illusion of a sellout....and then release a crap-ton of tickets in the few weeks leading up to the show...but there will be a cornucopia of empty seats.

They will totally sell out. We may not like them, but plenty of people do, and more people like Coldplay than Pearl Jam. If you trust Wikipedia, Coldplay has sold "over 80 million records worldwide". In contrast, Pearl Jam has sold "an estimated 60 million [records] worldwide".

They seemed to be well received by the millennials at GCF. I was actually shocked that anyone knew who they were. but then again I am so far out of the mainstream loop.

tweedyfanjen

lolobugg said:

tweedyfanjen said:

Wow, Coldplay. I saw them for the first time back in 2001 after winning free tickets off the radio. Tiny, tiny venue and really small crowd. Saw them a few times over the next few years but lost interest once they hit the big, big time. I had no idea their tix were going for that much. Go figure.

I had the same experience. saw them in a club in Atlanta in 2000/2001 (cancelled) and then in Charlotte(2002/2003). It was a good show. Saw them again in 2005 and it was a fucking joke.... never saw them again.....wait..i saw them at GCF last year. they were seriously lame. don't pay that much to see them in concert. save your money and support smaller bands that deserve it.

I think 2005 was the last time I saw them, too. Went to Charlotte and Atlanta shows, mainly to see Rilo Kiley who was the opener. I honestly don't remember what I paid but if I had to guess it would be $50/$60 range.

buck502000

lolobugg said:

Suziemay said:

Omaha_Jammer said:

riley540 said:

SR91748 said:

Bummer. I'd like to see Coldplay in Seattle, but I won't pay "lifetime experience" type prices. Appreciate the tip that they're in town. I like what Chris Martin is doing with Global Citizen.

They are playing Century Link which is a massive venue. I'm curious to see if it sells out or not. $90 will get me a seat that makes the band look like ants

ZERO chance this sells out. They may hold back tickets to create the illusion of a sellout....and then release a crap-ton of tickets in the few weeks leading up to the show...but there will be a cornucopia of empty seats.

They will totally sell out. We may not like them, but plenty of people do, and more people like Coldplay than Pearl Jam. If you trust Wikipedia, Coldplay has sold "over 80 million records worldwide". In contrast, Pearl Jam has sold "an estimated 60 million [records] worldwide".

They seemed to be well received by the millennials at GCF. I was actually shocked that anyone knew who they were. but then again I am so far out of the mainstream loop.

Little kids also thought Beyoncé would be closing/headlining GCF too