Like most things, concert tickets are more expensive than ever. Artists don’t have much to show for physical album sales anymore or via streaming revenue, and both play a factor in higher ticket costs.
Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine recently spoke with The SDR Show, and he said the increase in ticket prices is also a result of the higher cost of touring.
Mustaine was asked if it cost $50K a day for the band “just to sit still” on the road.
“Pretty close. Yeah, it’s pretty close,” he said. “What happens is you have each individual, and whether they’re working or not working, they get paid on a per-day basis. And so you have whoever is out on the road, and for us, it’s a lot of people. We have a light man, a soundman, a monitor man, and then you go on to the back. We’ve got a bunch of people up there — we’ve got a drum tech, a guitar tech and a bass and guitar tech, another monitor guy. And then there’s people backstage. There’s the drivers, the bus drivers, the truck drivers, the caterers, all that stuff. And then there’s all the hotels, all the money to get the hotel rooms for all these people. And then you’ve gotta feed ’em. So the cost just keeps going up and up and up.”
He continued: “A lot of people, they look at the ticket price and they think, ‘Man, I’m not paying 75 bucks to go see these guys.’ And I’m sad to say that even if you had a choice in the matter, it’s kind of what it is nowadays if you wanna go see a live band, because you just can’t get from point A to point B anymore without spending a lot of money.”
The full interview with Mustaine can be viewed below.
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