By Ashley Lim Ann Lee (24J16)
“I was enchanted to meet you..” “Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you.” “Versace on the floor..”
Find these tunes familiar?
If the word ‘concerts’ is floating on your mind, bingo! You may have heard others say that 2024 is THE year of concerts, and it is!. However, one huge question that hovers around not only mine, but many other minds is that - Are concert tickets overpriced?
One of the hottest concerts was Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, tickets were originally priced from SGD108 for cat 6 to SGD348 for cat 1. As for Bruno Mars, tickets were priced from SGD108 to SGD598. It does seem quite costly for 3h to spend being immersed with the all-time favourites sung by the artists we support.
Alice mentioned that she went to 3 concerts this year so far, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and Bruno Mars. To her, the most memorable one would be Coldplay. They made use of wristbands, which would light up in most of the songs, leading the whole atmosphere to be very cool and encouraging for everyone.
Additionally, Coldplay encourages their fans to return the wristbands after the concert so they can recycle the wristbands for the next concert, making it environmentally friendly for all.
She also mentioned that she would rate her experience 10/10 for Coldplay, followed by Bruno Mars and lastly Ed Sheeran. For all concerts, the atmosphere was awesome given everyone was just having fun and she got to submerge herself in it. For Coldplay, she spent about $140 on the tickets, and food which costs around $20. As for the other concerts she’s not sure but in total it was a total cost close to 1K.
Pictures of Coldplay concert
Photos from Bruno Mars concert
Photos from Ed Sheeran concert
As for Belinda, she also went to the Coldplay concert. However, she didn't know about Coldplay initially, who they were and what they played. All the knowledge she had stemmed from the tiktoks of people having fun in the concert and made her rather intrigued. All the fanfare about it being the concert of her lifetime stirred the interest in her.
She mentioned that she would rate her experience a 100/10!! Her total expenditure was $390.
She just bought a few tickets to other concerts such as NCT Dream, Girl in Red and also tried to buy tickets for Laufey but sadly it was sold out.
Vc
In my opinion, my stance is with the majority that concert tickets are not overpriced due to the immersive experience that may be a once in a lifetime opportunity for some. Concerts allow our favourite idols to bring their music in front of us which is such a fascinating and awesome moment to behold!
Nevertheless, I consider concert tickets not to be overpriced, and these are the various reasons why:
Firstly, the cost of renting a venue varies widely depending on its size, location, and amenities. Larger venues with better facilities usually charge higher rental fees, which can impact ticket prices.
For instance, most of the concerts are held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium which has an average rental price/fee of $100,000 per night, can house up to 55000 people and cost about 1.33B to construct.
An example of this would be the all time high demand Eras Tour, held for 6 nights which meant the rental was about $600,000! This just further goes to show that most of the revenue gained is spent on rental itself.
Secondly, money has to be spent on concert advertising. Concert promoters spend a lot of money marketing and promoting the event to ensure a good turnout. This includes posters, press releases, social media campaigns, and more.
The Eras Tour digital posters found on various social media platforms caught much attention from the public and increased ticket sales.
Thirdly, when there is demand, there has to be a supply. If there's high demand for tickets and limited availability (smaller venues or highly anticipated events), prices tend to be higher due to basic economic principles of supply and demand. This can be seen from the long snaking queues at the Singpost office when people could not get their hands on their tickets.
In conclusion, it can be both agreeable and disagreeable that concert tickets are overpriced. It depends on perspective and the connection between us and the singer, that would influence our idea on whether concert tickets are pricey or not. There will still be concerts we will be able to attend in the future and it is our own freedom to attend them.
Once again, I would like to ccdemphasise that 2024 is the year of concerts and I believe there is still an overwhelming number of concertgoers for every popular singer that sets foot in Singapore. To concertgoers, make sure to fully enjoy yourselves!
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