Ticket pricing has been a hot button issue in the music industry as of late. New dynamic pricing models have been implemented to meet demand and combat resellers — with the intention of putting more money in the pockets of artists.
It’s resulted in higher prices for concertgoers — especially for a high-demand ticket such as Taylor Swift. While there are many factors contributing to the higher prices (inflation, etc.), Avenged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows, a veteran of the mainstream touring circuit, pointed toward the excessive cost of putting on shows — and touring in particular — as another reason.
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In a lengthy new interview with YouTuber Bradley Hall, the singer reflected on the reality his own band faces with the cost of touring and the paltry sum he and his bandmates take home from playing shows — even those with a pricey ticket.
“Touring is very hard right now for bands,” Shadows said [as transcribed by Blabbermouth]. “It’s almost impossible. And you’re also having a big downturn in ticket sales right now. People have been blown out by ticket prices, because of the touring, because of the inflation, so every single thing stacks on top. And then you’ve got people that are very upset about what ticket prices are, which I get. It’s kind of crazy to go see a couple of bands and it’s gonna cost you five, six hundred bucks, or if it’s country artists, it’s a thousand dollars, if it’s Taylor Swift, it’s $3,200, or whatever it is.”
As Shadows stated, the higher production cost — “more trucks, more drivers, more gasoline, more travel” — means a more expensive ticket. Plus, new dynamic pricing models from the major ticket companies, which take into account secondhand market value so resellers don’t make more than artists, have also driven up the price. Even still, that doesn’t necessarily mean a larger cut for the band members themselves.
“If I was to get into numbers right now and show you what we make at a show and what it costs, I think you would just go, ‘Are you kidding me? How can you bring in that much money and then no band members make anything?’ And you’d be, like, ‘There’s gotta be somewhere in there that you have someone that’s just messing up.’ But it’s a true thing,” he said. “Just know that there are crazy amounts to get 38 people on a crew that need to be there…”
Shadows went on to say that an artist “could be really nice and charge 50 bucks and not make any money,” and then “you could have a reseller that could sell a few hundred of those tickets for up to a thousand dollars because there’s fans that will pay a thousand dollars.”
“Now, the reason dynamic pricing even ever got introduced is because the artist and the management said, ‘Why is the reseller making 10 [times] what the artist that’s on stage is making?” Shadows said. “There’s this many tickets that will sell for this much. Why aren’t we charging that much?’ And so what Ticketmaster did is they created a tool that allows artists to opt into this dynamic pricing. Now it’s very clear Ticketmaster created a tool to allow artists to opt into this. It’s not Ticketmaster just taking all the top end. It’s the artists. And artists love to hide behind Live Nation and Ticketmaster and go, ‘Oh. We had no clue. Can’t believe it.’”
Shadows admitted that he doesn’t have a solution for the conundrum, and with the current “runaway pricing, it’s just gonna bring ticket prices up for the fans, which is just gonna supplement what the costs are already for the artists.” He did suggest that artists should “think macro” about their touring activities in the current climate.
“Don’t make yourself miserable,” he said. “Don’t go grind in Europe for six weeks, be away from your family, make no money, maybe lose money, and basically play the same places you played 25 years. You’ve just gotta change the mindset. You’ve gotta free yourself from that and just go, ‘Well, we don’t need that. I don’t care. We’re not doing that.’”
Avenged Sevenfold are currently set to play a couple of 2025 stadium shows with System of a Down. You can get tickets here.
Watch the interview with M. Shadows below.