CMU School of Drama


Thursday, October 23, 2014

Fans expect marathon concerts from artists

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: When the Beatles invaded Pittsburgh in 1964 it lasted all of about 25 minutes, with a 12-song set for a ticket price of $5.90.

Imagine Paul McCartney running out now and bashing through just a dozen songs when the price right on the ticket goes as high as $262.50.

The promoters would have some very angry 60-somethings on their hands.

1 comment:

Tyler Jacobson said...

This is an interesting concept that I've never really thought about. I've grown up in a world where 1.5 hours of a concert is the norm and it's not unusual to have a pre opener who plays for 30-45 minutes, an opener who plays for 45-1hour, and then the main show which is anywhere from 1.5-2 hours. I've never really thought about how older concerts were closer to half an hour. It makes more sense why concerts and tours were comprised of 3-5 different artists who would all play. I do think that the 90 minute mark is key and people shouldn't feel gypped by an artist only playing that long, however, an artist shouldn't have ticket prices so high not to justify the length of their concert. It's nice that artists want to be generous and give people their money's worth. But they also need to weigh the energy of the performance and the quality of the material with people's attention spans. I think this is important for everyone to consider when looking into a concert. And artists should take these considerations into their performances as well.