Concerts are a popular activity that have spanned across generations. Concert lovers of all ages can agree that these events are a fun opportunity to connect with other fans, discover new artists through opening acts and hear artists live. However, just because they’re fun, does not mean they are cheap.

According to Background Animal, a music centered news page, in 1966 an average ticket to see The Beatles was $5.50 which in today’s pricing would be $53.50. An average ticket for Taylor Swift is $261, which if bought from a reseller a ticket can average around $1,500. 

Whether it’s inflated pricing or long queues, today’s concerts are more expensive and harder to get to than they used to be. In the recent craze of Harry Styles’s new tour, Together, Together, the number of people that initially joined the Ticketmaster queue was up to 235,000 people per show date. Instead of going around the country, Styles announced 30 show dates only at Madison Square Garden in New York. On top of ticket prices, if people outside of the city wanted to go to the concert they would have to add on the additional cost of flights, hotels and transportation, not to mention food and merchandise.

In addition to ticket prices, merchandise prices have increased dramatically. Where prices for a shirt used to be $12 to $15, now they’re typically $40 to $50 and over $100 for limited edition items like jackets. 

Of course this is not always the artist’s fault since inflation heavily contributes to the rising prices. However, artists and their teams can help prevent scalpers. During huge mainstream concerts, it has become a constant worry that a scalper will take your desired ticket and resell it for an extremely higher price. Back then, concert goers only had to worry about getting to the venue early. They did not have to worry about getting a presale code and logging on to SeatGeek or Ticketmaster before thousands of other people. 

According to Research Gate, artists can try to prevent ticket scalping through implementing non-transferable paperless ticketing, increasing supply or blacklisting accounts that have been detected to resell tickets multiple times. Artists such as Ed Sheeran and Paramore have started to combat high prices and resellers during their tours.

While these artists have started to input these tactics, I think it is vital that all artists find a way to make concerts more accessible.  Although we may not be able to stop inflation, I think everyone deserves a chance at seeing their favorite artists live, without the hassle of scalpers and inflated prices.