www.ticketnews.com: If you’ve spent any amount of time purchasing concert tickets, you probably have a fair idea of what a “normal” price is in your market. Top tier acts in arenas, summer amphitheater shows, intimate clubs featuring up-and-comers, they all have their variations. But what about how your city compares to another nearby? Or across the country?
3 comments:
For some reason, I’m often surprised by the prices of tickets when I go to purchase them. They are either much higher than I would expect or much lower. I think part of that has to do with the two primary venues in town. The two venues are PPG Paints Arena and Stage AE. I would argue that these two venues catch nearly 80% of the touring bands that come through town. Stage AE is the smaller of the two and I’ve found that these tickets are often cheaper than I would expect and the opposite is true for PPG Paints Arena. I was surprised from the article that New York was only 7th on the list and how low Pittsburgh was on the list. I think partially why New York may have been so low is because of how many smaller, cheaper venues there are in the area. I also would have that the spread would be farther than about $50 for all of the cities.
Like Ben King, I am pretty much always startled by ticket prices on either end of the spectrum. Half the time, tickets are way cheaper than I expect, and the other half, tickets are way more expensive. When I saw Panic! at the Disco in concert, the floor tickets were something like $30, despite being a popular band at Madison Square Garden, but when I tried to buy tickets for Lady Gaga in Pittsburgh, the tickets were around $200 for really bad seats. I think the list in the article was very interesting, and I definitely didn't expect New York to be so far down on the list, below Uncasville, Connecticut. I'm also surprised that Newark is so high up on the list, at spot number eleven, but I guess it makes sense because tours will often stop in Newark instead of New York. Overall, it is definitely very interesting from an economics and marketing standpoint to see how all of these different locations vary in sometimes unexpected ways.
I agree with Ben and Claire that ticket prices still catch me by surprise in both good and bad ways. Living in Pittsburgh, which ranked #39 on the map, I could go to one of my favorite band's concert for $60. It was still pricey compared to my financial situation and to the size of the venue (Carnegie Library Music Hall of Homestead) but if I were still living in the bay area, the price could have easily doubled, in a much bigger venue.
It is interesting how the pricing works. One could easily think from the basic supply and demand chart that concerts in small cities could be higher because there is less supply and in big cities there is higher supply. But I guess the demand must also be small in smaller cities and higher in big cities to reach this result. I would also love to know pricing for other kinds of performances, like Broadway musical tours. Even in Pittsburgh, the tickets easily go above $100 for the Broadway tour series in the Benedum center. Could it be due to high demand in every city? Can the classic and popular musical tours create something similar to the Big Mac Index?
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