No moss, but lots of dosh

[Pabmusic]

It seems that opera is not the only musical entertainment that can be criticised for high prices:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20066145

Perhaps the Stones will now be taken to task for being 'elitist'.

[Note to self: must look up Rolling Stones - are they a new popular beat combo?]

[EdgeleyRob]

It seems that opera is not the only musical entertainment that can be criticised for high prices:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20066145

Perhaps the Stones will now be taken to task for being 'elitist'.

[Note to self: must look up Rolling Stones - are they a new popular beat combo?]

Crikey that is a lot of money

[Pianorak]

Football - elitist? http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/b...sts-slash.html

[Petrushka]

Top price ticket for last season's Berlin Philharmonic/Rattle and Vienna Philharmonic/Haitink Proms: £46.

Top price ticket for the 2013 Cheltenham Gold Cup: £85.

Which one is elitist and for rich toffs?

[teamsaint]

There have been some interesting developments in pricing recently.

In rock and Pop, somebody has decided that big name retro stars can command big ticket prices. I think that the trend was begun by madonna who crashed through the £100 a ticket barrier,and I guess still sold out. Over the last year or so I have seen ticket prices around the £35 mark for bands like Squeeze, Madness, Morrisey etc. Still bigish names, but a year or two back they were charging around £20 , which is standard for places like Southampton Guildhall.
personally, i won't pay that sort of money for 75 minutes of a band whose best days are long gone, and this applies to the Stones, who i have never seen, and would have loved to have seen once upon a time....but who needs it now? I also refused to pay £45 to see the wonderful REM from the boundary of a cricket ground with a guaranteed 2 hour wait to get out afterwards.

So, Rock , and football , as we know, can charge elite prices. However there are bargains to be had. Many festivals, (and the smaller ones can be civilised), offer 3/4 days of quality entertainment for around £120. And football CAN be good value....there are PL teams where a ST can be had for around £300(EG Villa). However, football is in general a rip off. EdgeleyRob pays £18 to watch his team Stockport in the FIFTH tier. Not questioning Rob's judgement, of course,but that is big money for the fifth level of anything.
Classical music is the same. plenty of ripoffs, but lots of great value if you shop around, both live and on CD.

Elitism? nothing much to do with price......(compare west end musicals and opera), everything to do with attitudes..lets refer to the all those people(Andrew Marr etc) who quite wrongly portray R3 as "difficult".
Its up to lovers of classical music to share there passion, if they want the elitist tag to go...nobody else will do it. The powers that be are happy with most people enjoying their music predigested, in 2 minute X factor nuggets.Thought and passion scare them witless....

[teamsaint]

Crikey that is a lot of money

especially when the band get winter fuel allowance and a bus pass to help them along...

[Serial_Apologist]

The subject matter of this thread is not the only reason that I am a devotee of that elitist musical genre, jazz, but it substantiates my taste choice. For instance, the London Jazz Festival is in the offing, presenting pricier tickets in the range discussed above for some of the sometimes overhyped "living legends" from across The Pond, but including as useful publicity many of the regular gigs about town normally charging between £6/12 for 2 and a half hours' worth of quality music, plus freebie afternoon sessions in the "people's palace" on the South Bank, some of them organised by Radio 3, so you gets your chance there to be mobile'photoed/cross swords with Jez Nelson about Jon3's programming policies!

[Ferretfancy]

I think that there is a real pricing crisis where concert going is concerned, especially if they want younger audiences.

A few years ago, my partner and I made a number of donations to support the South Bank Centre refurbishment, which was practically a rebuild. Since then we have received numerous appeals for more money, and of course they are still appealing for donations for the rebuild of the organ.

We were actually told that the South Bank has a running deficit of £4 million a year, in spite of the fact that they received huge sums from the National Lottery along with the funding from the earlier appeals, moreover they hope to balance the books by repeatedly begging the customers for more support.

To me, this suggests that they have never had a proper business plan beyond the re-opening phase.

When the Royal festival Hall re-opened, all the orchestras raised their ticket prices, the Philharmonia in particular, so that a so called premium seat in the stalls now costs £65
The SBC does not get a share of any of this increase, it all goes to the orchestras.

There's no doubt of course that the musicians are having a tough time, but what needs to be done?

I foresee a time quite soon when the only people able to afford concerts will be older patrons who are comfortably retired.

[MrGongGong]

To me, this suggests that they have never had a proper business plan beyond the re-opening phase.

eeer

they do
(though i'm not sure what's in it and would probably slump into a snooze if I had to read it !!)

What needs to be done ?

maybe not having the fantasy that you can fund music from sponsorship ?

Get the rich to pay more tax would be a good start