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Matt Wells Talks Festival Prices

June 20th, 2007

It’s not so much that I long for the days of a band like Fugazi only charging 5 or 6 dollar cover to a show, or for the days I saw the Tragically Hip for $18.50, in a stadium. I’m not gonna stand here and cry about concert ticket prices…they are what they are, you have the choice to decide whether or not you think a particular concert is worth the ticket price or not.

I’m not even going to argue the skeptics in the industry who are crying over the fact that tickets to the 25 dates of Ozzfest are free this year. There is something far more important to be concerned about this summer on the festival circuit, and it’s VIP packages. For about 200 bucks American you could have gotten the normal person weekend camping pass to the Bonnaroo festival and saw artists like Tool, The Police and The White Stripes OR you could have cashed in your RRSPs and gotten the VIP treatment of exclusive viewing bleachers, exclusive bathroom and showering facilities and discounted food and drink prices for a measly 1200 bucks; sounds ridiculous right… apparently not so ridiculous, Bonnaroo VIP packages sold out.

If you’re planning on checking out Pearl Jam, Daft Punk and the Stooges at Lollapalooza you can also get a weekend pass for about 200 bucks unless of course you and your friends would rather get a deluxe cabana with catered meals, spa treatment and free booze…that will only cost about 30k…for real, 30 thousand dollars!!

Even the FREE Ozzfest offers VIP packages for close to a grand to get backstage and meet Ozzy.

I guess I could just say live and let live here and be happy with my place on the economic ladder knowing that I will have an amazing time at a festival, the way they were meant to be…uncomfortable, dirty, and loud. But I can’t help but think that the more popular these VIP packages become to Richie Rich and all his friends, the more concert promoters will make them available and perhaps to the detriment of the normal concert goer who can sometimes barely afford the ticket price as it is. Think about it, if you can sell more space on a concert site to VIPers for a thousand bucks, who cares about an 80 dollar floor seat when it could be a 1000 dollar VIP floor seat. It’s a trend that could eventually make the amount of regular tickets for sale at concerts less and less, and that would suck.

All I’m saying is that if you want to rock out to Wolfmother, Wilco or Tool with a bottle of wine, and massage, and walk away with clean clothes, go buy a CD or DVD and stay at home and let the rest of us peasants groove in our own filth for a price we won’t have to miss rent over. And furthermore, instead of paying to get backstage, go rent Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous” and learn how to do it the old fashioned way … become a journalist. What did you think I meant?

Posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 6:07 pm by Matt Wells and is filed under Music & Videos.