I was so young back then(ahh the good ole days)

[cadaverdog]

It's amazing, isn't it? Back in the seventies and early eighties you could see a show with three bands on the bill for the unbelievable price of $3.50. You have wonder how anybody involved with the gigs made money.

Not out here you didn't unless it was three completely unknown bands. I think I paid $12.50 to see Cal Jam II in 78 at Ontario Motor Speedway and I can't remember paying much more to see the US Festival in 83. I think the last indoor show I saw was Van Hagar at the Forum in 93 right after the riots and I don't think I paid more than $20.00 to see that show. Most of the concerts I've attended since I got free tickets for or they were free with admission to the fair or part of a big bike run like The Love Ride. I must have missed out on those $3.50 shows back in the day.

[chefcraig]

Not out here you didn't unless it was three completely unknown bands. I think I paid $12.50 to see Cal Jam II in 78 at Ontario Motor Speedway and I can't remember paying much more to see the US Festival in 83. I think the last indoor show I saw was Van Hagar at the Forum in 93 right after the riots and I don't think I paid more than $20.00 to see that show. Most of the concerts I've attended since I got free tickets for or they were free with admission to the fair or part of a big bike run like The Love Ride. I must have missed out on those $3.50 shows back in the day.

I saw the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Doobie Brothers in April of 1975 at the Hollywood Sportatorium here in the not-so-deep-south. The tickets cost a staggering 4-5 dollars. A few years later (April 28, 1978) I witnessed Van Halen, Montrose and Journey for a whopping 7 bucks! Damned inflation.

[ThrillsNSpills]

I've got a Diver Down ticket somewhere that cost 9.50.

You figure that cost plus how much better VH was than everyone in rock(far as the show, tunes and presentation, not to mention innovation on instruments) and it's impossible to imagine. Game changing stuff indeed.

[VHscraps]

Be interesting to see a chart like that covering, say the 70s up to the present. I was recently reading a book on the Rolling Stones - and this is even before Platinum certifications were invented (that was in 76, I think) - and Exile on Main Street sold two million in the US in the first few days of release. There are loads of albums from back then - the 60s and 70s - that sold probably millions and millions and never got a platinum disc, 'cos no record company ever retrospectively requested an audit.

Bands made money on record sales back then, and the likes of the Stones had very favourable deals - I think Allen Klein even got them a better royalty rate than the Beatles had when he took over their affairs in the late 60s (even if he did nick their 60s catalogue).

The first gigs I went to by established 'big name' acts, around about 1980, cost about £2.50-3.50 - Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, and all those Deep Purple cast-offs who used to roam the land every year in those days (Gillan, Whitesnake, Rainbow et al).

I think at that time a new album would set you back about the same as a concert ticket - £2.99 to £3.50. The first time I was truly fleeced by a scalper for a concert ticket was for DLR at Hammersmith Odeon in 1988. £50 - that was one hot ticket.

[Seshmeister]

The last Rush tour and album is a good example from my point of view and my moral relativism.

They announce the tour and I buy two average tickets in a 10 000 seat arena for about $250 over a year before the show.

That money sits in their account all that time so when the album comes out on a torrent a couple of weeks before it is on sale I just didn't feel bad about downloading that and getting $15 back.

Less often talked about is the other threat to music income from streaming. I have an album currently distributed via Interscope Records/UMG the same people that did the last VH album.

When someone streams a track on Spotify or whatever we get a little over half a cent. Recorded music is simply promotion for live shows, in the past the situation was the complete reverse.

[cadaverdog]

With the improvements in home entertainment that have been made in the last twenty years and the prices they charge at shows nowdays I'm surprised so many people are still going to concerts nowdays. I could watch a concert on Blu Ray on the 55 inch big screen while the sound's playing through the surround sound stereo while I'm sitting in a lazy boy doing bongloads and drinking beer without worring about getting busted or having some wasted bitch try to stab me with a fork so why should I pay some outragious price for tickets and twenty bucks for a twelve ounce beer? I never got stabbed with a fork by some wasted bitch at a concert but a friend I went with to an Ozzy show did. He was lucky it was a cheap fork and bent before it went in past the tines.