It’s official. Going on tour is not fun. (TicketMaster etc.)

[Simon DS]

Neil Young. I love this guy.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...-no-longer-fun

So I thought, why not have a thread with limited comments, just info links , and photos of people having fun on tour?

Here’s the first one.

[A-board]

In addition to their pricing policies, their website is difficult at best. I’m fortunate to have some local independent smaller venues that feature alternative ticket vendors. I despise stadium concerts anyway.

Sorry if off-topic. I have no tours from which to post. Would gig at local farmers market count?

[CarlM]

The best view of what a musicians life is like on tour I have seen is from Leland Sklar's YouTube channel. Leland Sklar, for those not familiar with him, is one of the most prominent studio and touring bassists in the country. He has had an amazing career, starting with James Taylor and Carole King and has played with Linda Ronstadt, Phil Collins, Toto and hundreds of major to virtually unknown names in music.

Last summer and again earlier this year he posted a video every day while on tour with Lyle Lovett, first with his Large Band then with the Acoustic Group. He would walk though venues, talk to fans, interview the road techs and sound guys,show sound checks, sometimes get lost in the venues. The venues ranged from Gruene Hall the oldest still operating roadhouse in Texas to small community theaters to the Birchmere to Wolf Trap to Austin City Limits and places like that. One really interesting video showed how they crated up a Steinway grand piano every night, moving it from venue to venue with the acoustic group. A few have been walks through unique communities, such as showing Aspen, Colorado's amazing Christmas lights or Chautauqua, New York. He has posted dozens of these videos.

The video below walks through one of the more amazing halls they played at Round Top in Texas.

They showed me that it takes a really stable person to manage life on the road, the long stretches of boredom punctuated by suddenly having to be there and on at a high level every night while being away from family. Also the size of the show, the number of people involved and the hard work setting up and tearing down every night is impressive.

For mandolin content, the tour he just finished with Lyle Lovett's Acoustic group regularly featured Jeff White, the mandolin player for the Earl's of Leicester on both guitar and mandolin. Luke Bulla was also on fiddle with them.

[tmsweeney]

I don't have any tour pictures either, but I think when I saw Blue Oyster Cult in 1979, it was $14 for general admission.
A kid could scrape up that kind of money with a paper route or odd jobs.
These days going to a major concert with more than one person, it starts equaling a car payment, or God forbid a mortgage payment (Pop Rock, haven't seen that in the Blue Grass camp yet)
King Crimson in Saratoga last year was $80/ per person general admission.
When you hear the artists complain about it, you know its just the middle man jacking the price.
My concert days to stadiums and large arenas are long gone, but I feel for sorry for the kids, greedy unimaginative people sucking the joy out live music.

[Tavy]

50% driving, 30% hanging round, 29% sleep, 1% having fun (actually playing!).

Typical load in is 5pm, 7pm sound check, 9pm start gig and by midnight one very hungry and tired looking band are looking for somewhere still open that still has some food, often a 24 hour fuel stop serving pot-noodles and stale sandwiches. Every now again you get a venue that will feed you something home made before the gig - a particular shout out to Kings Sombourne on that front - those venues are worth their weight in gold!

Sometimes there's some sightseeing:



And sometimes you play somewhere lovely and outdoors and sunny:

[DaveGinNJ]

No question that Ticketmaster is the Devil. They have a near monopoly. What is particularly egregious is that fees can raise the ticket price by 50%. I have to pay an extra fee for an E-ticket??

[Kenny]

We recently went to see Cirque de Soleil and Ticketmaster was the blockade. After our recent experiences with Ticketmaster my wife and I have decided that any show, concert, et al. that’s got Ticketmaster involved is a show we can skip.

[Steve 2E]

[asIsaidtomyfriend]

Went to a lot of shows in the late 60s early 70s. Some of the best and some of the worst music I've ever heard.

[Simon DS]

Went to a lot of shows in the late 60s early 70s.
Some of the best and some of the worst music I've ever heard.

- me too. It was awful!
So I gave up playing the accordion and with a lot of hard work I learned the mandolin!

[Bertram Henze]

There comes a time when a band can't afford to attend their own gig. That'll be the day when the Irish session will be the only way to perform left.
Up to now, my prophecies had a creepy way of coming true, so I hope this is an exception

[Tavy]

There comes a time when a band can't afford to attend their own gig. That'll be the day when the Irish session will be the only way to perform left.
Up to now, my prophecies had a creepy way of coming true, so I hope this is an exception

I wouldn't be surprised if there are band members out there right now making less on a gig than some folks are paying for tickets. There's money out there, but it rarely trickles down. Not sure how I would feel if we ever got popular enough to play at ticketmaster venues.

[DaveGinNJ]

We recently went to see Cirque de Soleil and Ticketmaster was the blockade. After our recent experiences with Ticketmaster my wife and I have decided that any show, concert, et al. that’s got Ticketmaster involved is a show we can skip.

Unfortunately avoiding Ticketmaster cuts out a lot of shows. I am not sure how they manage to have such a stranglehold. I can’t think of a recent concert I went to that did not use Ticketmaster

[Marcus CA]

No question that Ticketmaster is the Devil. They have a near monopoly. What is particularly egregious is that fees can raise the ticket price by 50%. I have to pay an extra fee for an E-ticket??

Unfortunately avoiding Ticketmaster cuts out a lot of shows. I am not sure how they manage to have such a stranglehold. I can’t think of a recent concert I went to that did not use Ticketmaster

Case in point: I just bought e-tickets to see Nickel Creek in Oakland in October. NorCal prices: $60 for back of the orchestra.

Basic math: 2 x 65 = 130
Ticketmaster math: 2 x 65 = 168.10 (nearly 30% more)

A few weeks earlier, I bought e-tickets to see John Reischman and the Jaybirds at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley.

Basic math: 2 x 24 (which seems ridiculously cheap here for that band!) = 48
Freight math: 2 x 24 = 52 (nearly 10% more)

Admittedly, less is involved with tickets at the Freight because the seating isn't reserved. At the Freight, though, the service charge is always $4, regardless of the ticket price. That seems logical, since the service is always the same, regardless of the ticket price.

I was never in tech, but I would guess that Ticketmaster maintains its stranglehold because a start-up competitor would have to have the server capacity, the bandwidth, and the tech support to handle floodgate demand for a 15K-50K ticket show. You don't want to have that many people discover on the day tickets go on sale that you don't have all of those in place.

[Don Grieser]

If venues want to use TicketMaster, they have to sign an exclusive deal with them--they can't have any music events that don't use TicketMaster. That along with their merger/acquisition of LiveNation gives them a stranglehold on large live music venues. Glad I like my music in small venues.

[Ira7]

I wouldn’t quote Neil Young to support any position. The guy is a serious jerk.

[Bertram Henze]

There's money out there, but it rarely trickles down.

In yesterday's pub session, we had a tip jar and I ended up with 12€ for 4 hours of playing (covers my car fuel expenses, approx.) I am so glad I never envisioned a business plan in music

[Charlie Bernstein]

That's what I say. Play till you drop.

[Southern Man]

Unfortunately avoiding Ticketmaster cuts out a lot of shows. I am not sure how they manage to have such a stranglehold. I can’t think of a recent concert I went to that did not use Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster has such a stranglehold because they are not just a ticketing company. They also own venues. Other venues they manage, either completely or for some subsection of events. They also own a host of festivals. They also manage over 2000 artists.

They leverage all of these things to maintain pricing power through market dominance. Unfortunately we have very, very poor management of antitrust provisions in the US, particularly when it comes to vertical integration.

While I'm glad to see artists from Pearl Jam to the Cure speak out against Ticketmaster in the ways that they can, TM/LiveNation is too large and has too much leverage for individual artists to pressure them in any meaningful way.

[musicofanatic]

I'm not entirely sure what the exact focus of this post is, but I have toured with bands playing music since the late 1970s, mostly in a van, driving coast to coast, or flying to Europe and getting in a van driving from country to country. It could be grueling, but a great way to make a decent living for many years...better and more consistent income than trying to stay working regular on the local/regional scene...until about 2010. The overhead killed it with the cost of fuel, lodging, food, then covid...forget about it. I went on a 3 week tour in the southeastern US with a blues band last November, just to try it again and...nope, never again. If the conditions were right (first class travel and accommodations, BIG pay) i might consider it, but I'm too old for the budget-level crap...

[DaveGinNJ]

Ticketmaster has such a stranglehold because they are not just a ticketing company. They also own venues. Other venues they manage, either completely or for some subsection of events. They also own a host of festivals. They also manage over 2000 artists.

They leverage all of these things to maintain pricing power through market dominance. Unfortunately we have very, very poor management of antitrust provisions in the US, particularly when it comes to vertical integration.

While I'm glad to see artists from Pearl Jam to the Cure speak out against Ticketmaster in the ways that they can, TM/LiveNation is too large and has too much leverage for individual artists to pressure them in any meaningful way.

I guess ticking off Taylor Swift fans crossed some sort of line. Interesting to see how this plays out

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/27/media...urt/index.html

[jaycat]

I wouldn’t quote Neil Young to support any position. The guy is a serious jerk.

That's funny. He speaks well of you.

[Steve 2E]

That's what I say. Play till you drop.

[ccravens]

I wouldn’t quote Neil Young to support any position. The guy is a serious jerk.

What you identify as jerky behavior, he calls following his "muse."

[Steve 2E]