Live Music Suffers Rare Slump

[Magic]

I also thought each venue "Books" the artist or band. Meaning it costs the venue X amount of money to have the band.

I cant see River Bend (which is a large local venue) having no say what-so-ever in the ticket price. The venue has to make money, too

 

[LG]

^^I'm sure there is a standard fee for renting an arena, stadium, club that is set. The promoter rents the venue for that night and all the costs the band charges for a gig might be fixed, or dependent on ticket sales and now more than ever they depend on selling memorabilia at the shows too. I love my favorite old bands, but would never pay the prices they want at a concert for a shirt.

It's enough to just enjoy the show and buy their ablums.

 

[ANF]

The reason that U2 is one of the 'top grossing live acts' in the years that they tour is because they ONLY do stadium shows (as opposed to arena shows that most big/national acts do) and they charge a higher 'premium' than just about everyone else in the industry. Bring Bone Oh's ego and arrogance back down to earth to prices similar to many other artists that hvae been around as long or longer? You'd see their "top grossing act" status drop tremendously.

I can't stomach Bono's "I'm the rock star Gandhi" ego either, but you cannot deny that there are a handful of artists who have really defied eras and have lasted for the long haul, and I would say the 30 years since U2 debuted is long enough to put them in that group. Honestly I would say they've been "bigger" than The Stones for the past 20 years if you want to get into things like album sales and the sort. The Stones rarely play anything post-Tattoo You now when they tour and when I saw them the only songs after 1981 they did were new songs, U2 have had a few of those "this song will always be in the set" type of songs in the past 10-15 years. Keep in mind thirty years is actually a really long time and the only other artists I can think of who emerged in the early 80's who are anywhere near U2's level in terms of touring and new albums in 2011 are Metallica and Madonna. Most of the acts who came up alongside U2 are nostalgia acts only now.