It feels like 1984. The Cure, Depeche Mode, Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, Lionel Richie, Kiss, Madonna, Rod Stewart will all be performing at the Bell Center over the next few months. Except that in 1984, Bruce Springsteen could be seen from a seat “in the red” at the Forum for $19.50 (the equivalent of $50.35 today, according to the Bank of Canada).
How much does it cost today to get a ticket to a Bruce Springsteen show at the Bell Center in November, in the red equivalent of the Forum? At the very least $439 and up to $1500.
I’m not talking about the prices demanded by shady resellers, but those displayed on the official Ticketmaster website. The price of rent. And not just in the working-class neighborhoods the Boss usually talks about. I had the chance that a friend unearthed us tickets, the morning of the official sale, for “only” 10 times the price of 1984. What a godsend!
I was there in 2008, during Springsteen’s last visit to Montreal, at the invitation of my friend and boss Alain, exegete of the Boss. I had inherited Foglia’s ticket. Fifteen years ago, it cost $126.75 to see the E Street Band from the Bell Center floor. At Ticketmaster’s resale price this week, a ticket at the same location was $850.62 to see Springsteen next fall. There is inflation and inflation.
It’s hard, under the circumstances, not to feel like the turkey of a very flat farce. That of dynamic pricing – which my colleague Marissa Groguhé spoke about in our pages in October – and resale by Ticketmaster, which replaces scalpers of yesteryear, testing the limits (and ability to pay) of viewers.
You have to be a turkey to shell out $200 to attend the Bell Center in August, Celebration Tour of Madonna… from behind the stage. I did say “attend”, not “see”.
I am no less nostalgic turkey than the others. I too wanted to line up virtually on Wednesday morning to get my hands on tickets for The Cure, still at the Bell Center, in June.
At least the biggest “alternative” band of my teenage years decided to offer reasonably priced tickets, ignoring dynamic pricing and platinum tickets, unlike most musicians on tour now (VIP package for Madonna at the Bell Center costs $2,500).
These marketing strategies are not without consequences for artists. The sometimes prohibitive prices of Bruce Springsteen’s show have earned him an unprecedented backlash among his most loyal fans.
Many have wondered why this “working class hero”, who sold all his music rights to Sony for half a billion dollars in 2021, thus ran the risk of tarnishing his reputation, at 73, for a few million dollars. more. The price to be paid is not always quantifiable in US dollars.
PHOTO ANNE GAUTHIER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Robert Smith, lead singer of The Cure, performing at Osheaga in August 2013
The Cure is concretely opposed to soaring ticket prices and it is to its credit. The only time I saw the band perform was 25 years ago in Lyon. It had cost me nothing. I had gone outside the Roman theater of Fourvière to listen to Robert Smith sing. He was only 39 years old. He will be 64 next month.
Retirement no longer exists for the old glories of popular music. The Rolling Stones are back on tour despite the death two years ago of their drummer Charlie Watts. Depeche Mode will be in Montreal despite the death last year of its keyboardist Andy Fletcher. Lynyrd Skynyrd resumed touring a week after the death of guitarist and founder Gary Rossington. As long as there are nostalgic people to pay…
I’m not fooled why a good part of the Bell Center’s show program could be confused with that of 40 years ago at the Forum. I have reached the age where I can theoretically afford one (two or three) trip of nostalgia.
Very few 25-year-olds will be able and willing to pay $200 to see Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel or The Cure perform. As very few 50 year olds will want to hear new songs from these artists.
We will see Depeche Mode or Madonna for fun, of course. We also go there to lull ourselves into the illusion that our physical age is the same as our mental age, that is to say the age that we feel we have, and which is sometimes 10 years lower at our real age. In my head, I’m barely 40 years old.
Where does my nostalgia end? Where my principles take over. To see Metallica at Olympic Stadium in August, Ticketmaster charges a minimum of $374. Tickets climb very quickly to $600, $800, or even $1,200. A ticket for the Guns N’Roses show in a box at Parc Jean-Drapeau, three days earlier? $1925. They have foreheads all around their heads.
I paid $39.25 to see Metallica AND Guns at Olympic Stadium in 1992. Ever since the Axl Rose riot, I swore I wouldn’t give that jerk another penny, and I’ll keep my word. . Maybe I’ll go see it again when Metallica and Guns N’Roses put on a free show to make up for the viewers of 31 years ago. Not before. Nostalgia always has its limits.