Musicians are manufacturing sold-out shows | Hacker News Reader

Musicians are manufacturing sold-out shows

bloomberg.com

As an antidote to this I would like to offer my experience in the industry in the mid-90's specifically around Garth Brooks.

I've never been a fan of his music, but at that time he really seemed to be focused on ensuring that as many regular fans got to see his shows as possible.

He limited the price of his tickets to I believe $25. This was when he was at the peak of his fame so he easily could have gotten away with charging much more.

Secondly he would often book a massive amount of dates in each city but only announce one of them. The next show in the block of dates would go on sale after the previous one sold out. It didn't fully stop scalpers but the unpredictable nature of how many shows in total there would be and when they would be on sale cut down on a lot of the scalping.

Again, not a huge fan of his music, but he seemed genuinely interested in helping his fans get to his shows.

There has been a huge shift in why musicians do live shows and with it a shift in how they price them.

25 years ago, I did an odd job taking calls for Livenation for a U2 Show. While not cheap, ticket prices were well below market value and strict purchase limits in attempts to curb scalpers.

Today the same venue starts auctioning tickets when nearing sold out and ticket master runs a scalping service.

My explanation is back when records was big business, tours were seen as more of a promotional tool. Today very few artist makes sustainable money off of record sales or streaming so music sales is more of a promotion for other services, the main one being live shows.

Back then live shows were advertisements for the album, these days albums are advertisements for the live shows.

I helped run a website selling tickets for a venue that had a Garth Brooks concert. I can confirm that they did the same thing in the 2010's.

Did he ever book shows as Chris Gaines (his alt-rock alter ego) in that timeframe?

I've been in and around the music business since the 90s. This is not new. There's even a term for it, it's called an "underplay".

Just a preference for the artist. If you go for bigger venues and stretch a little bit, you might end up filling it, and then you'd make more money. If you underplay, then you're guaranteed to have a good vibe at the show, which musicians care a lot about.

That's really, I think, the dynamic that most people use. There is an aspect of it that is public perception-facing, but I've been around a lot of musicians ranging from just starting out to household names, I think it's mostly a trade-off between those two options. Just about every musician prefers smaller venues because they're more fun to play, and less financial risk.

Like anything there are exceptions. For example, an artist who wants to headline Madison Square Garden for the first time might make a different choice. But I don't think the strategy is that much about cleverness. It's just about preference.

There is a psychological hype effect which affects both audience and performers in a capacity room of any size. Whether it's 50 or 5000, if the room is full, you feel it, and it adds to the excitement, tension and maybe magic of the event. There's nothing worse than playing an empty room, and some of the best times I've ever had have been with a band and thirty people crammed into a living room.

As a musician myself, I can 100% confirm this. For me personally, small gigs are often the most fun because the audience is very close and you can actually see/hear the reaction of individual people. Noticing one or two excited audience members can already make a difference. Conversely, a Jazz musician once told me that seeing me in the front row, visibly enjoying his performance, fired him up. Also, in a small venue it is much easier to hang out with the audience after the concert.

One of the most fun gigs I had was a garage concert at a friend's place in Luxembourg we did on our way to a festival. The fact that weed had just been legalized in Luxembourg certainly contributed to a very receptive and enthusiastic audience. We ended up repeating our whole set :-D

The best concert experience I ever had was in the mid-90's. I went to a medium level band (frequent radio play at the time, but you probably wouldn't recognize the name now) at a smaller venue. But I guess nobody really promoted the show at all. Only 8 people showed up for the audience. The band didn't seem to care and rocked it anyway. During their most popular song the singer got down off the stage and passed the mic around, we all sang karaoke style.

I don't know, at several of my favorite places, capacity is 10% too much.

Marketing 101. I don't go to concerts often, but there was one last year. Tickets for the thursday show were sold out within minutes, but oh look, they tried Really Hard and revealed they were going to do an EXTRA show on the Friday!

(they already had it planned but wanted to make sure the first show on the less popular day was sold out first)

Or they didn't want to commit to the extra shows until demand was clear

> Or they didn't want to commit to the extra shows until demand was clear

I think the whole point is that only Superstar Divas used to be able to operate like this.

Now, even "starving artists" are employing grey-area price-gouging techniques.

My anecdata is that concert fatigue is real.

I doubt this is going to bode well in the mid or long term.

My crystal ball doesn't work any better than anyone else's though...

Would you care to elaborate on what you mean with concert fatigue? I've never heard of it and you're talking about it as though it's something that is so common, it is implied to be known.

I go to more concerts than ever, due to the well-known phenomenon of streaming guilt.

(I just invented that term, but it's real for me!)

Logistically, it is complicated to do that unless it is a small venue and you are an indie band. It takes a lot of planning, contracts and advance payments to make a reasonably big show to happen. Larger venues are usually booked with months in advance, and most things you pay in advance are not refundable.

Wouldn’t you do Friday first in that scenario?

Venue might be cheaper on the Thursday.

I thought venues paid artists.

Generally not outside of the bar-band level, but it is highly variable.

I often see ads on Facebook for products where it says "selling out really fast" or "first batch already sold out" type of thing and my first mental response is "okay, I probably won't be able to get one then, I'll wait for your supply chain to catch up to the demand"

In short, the author thinks it's the same reason that a half empty club will keep a line waiting outside: it inflates demand. Reality is probably that's one of the reasons only some of the time.

There’s a bakery around here that actively works to make their line as long as possible. They might have the best croissants in the city, but they also have one person bagging them up at a snail’s pace and chatty cashier that wants to verify with every customer that yes, indeed, it is a beautiful day outside and the weather this week is supposed to be sunny with maybe some rain on Tuesday and she hopes it doesn’t rain on Tuesday because that’s her day off and she was thinking of going on a hike.

This must be a social media thing because there isn't a pastry on earth worth worth waiting ten minutes for

Arsicault in the Richmond District in SF?

The secret to not waiting at Ariscault is to live nearby and go on a weekday - you can walk right up.

> thinks it's the same reason that a half empty club will keep a line waiting outside

Yeah, one of the most famous club in Berlin used to pull that trick, now it is about to close because the owners are not making enough money. People aren't fooled by these tactics anymore.

Which club?

I assume Berghain

Berlin has hundreds of clubs, half of which are constantly about to close. But berghain has sufficient clout it will remain for decades even if it continues to be mediocre and hostile to its customers.

Berghain has always been packed though, they don't have issues with getting audience.

It may have been true in a bygone era when it was a crapshoot to "wing" plans and change mid-adventure, when the people standing in line couldn't just check the slab in their pocket to find alternative options such as venues without a line.

As an aside, I've noticed an uptick in the amount of YouTube ads for music artists and their live shows. The amount of faux-organic hype being generated feels like it has increased recently, with those same artists who I have never heard of showing up on podcasts. It feels like a new era of payola.

I don't think this is "sneaky" - to use the term from the article. Yes, on the one hand a band could maximize by playing in a larger venue, but maybe doing so diminishes the experience for more people. Smaller venues, greater precision, and budgeting, and a better experience for the audience seems like a win.

Not quite sure this is an issue that needs an article in Bloomberg

Maybe it’s the old man in me but I’d venture to say most things in Bloomberg don’t need to be in Bloomberg.

I’d love it if a news site said occasionally, “there’s nothing really news worthy today. Yesterday’s important stuff will do.”

Also I’m mad I can’t get tickets to see angine de poitrine in Philly.

I see you don't subscribe to weekend papers. Mild, minor culture articles are perfectly normal and welcome for media outlets to carry for the people who pay to subscribe for their journalism.

And from what I’ve experienced: bigger shows aren’t cheaper! Smaller for the win.

I’ve avoided arena shows for decades because they’re usually super-expensive and a less satisfying experience. Back in the 90s when I made a comment in the Discipline Global Mobile website about deciding I didn’t want to see a show in a venue biger than 500 seats or spend more than $50 for it, Robert Fripp himself reposted it in his online diary approvingly. I think I’m willing to go a bit higher than that on both these days (I’ll see a show in a large theater which I’m guessing is around 1–2000 seats and inflation and higher income has raised my threshold on what I’ll spend on tickets), but generally I find smaller venues to be the most satisfying to see live music. Plus, this is going to be more obscure or early-career acts so you get to be hipper than thou when you see them.

When I was a teenager in the 90's I managed to score tickets to what was probably one of Pink Floyd's last tours. If I recall correctly, a ticket cost $40, which was pretty steep for a kid with only a paper route. Still, I was very excited--it was my first concert without my parents--but the experience was terrible.

The show was in a stadium. The sound was terrible. Everyone around me was smoking pot. I was so far away that the musicians were barely visible. The only consolation was that Pink Floyd had a great lights show and a big movie screen behind them showing flying pigs and things like that.

I went to one more stadium show after that--The Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage--and it was somehow worse. The sound was deafening but also unintelligible.

There are many musicians I would love to see, but the big show experience is awful. Fortunately, I have since seen many, many shows in smaller venues. I fondly remember watching Low play in a candlelit (!!) venue with audience members sitting/laying (!!!) on the floor. Way, way better, and definitely hipper than thou.

Feel exactly the same way. I start going to shows in the late 90s - once in high school. All small venues.

I started going to more shows in college (mostly jam) and then even more as an adult with just a smidge more money.

Two shows stick out as particularly bad:

1. Dave Matthews Band - Fenway Park. There is no way to correct all of the oddities (and charm) of the place. The sound was terrible. I enjoyed the show anyways, but it was the worst sound quality I had seen for $90.

2. Phish - Fenway Park. Sound terrible too. From what I saw, the Phish show is folks listening to the music and folks doing whatever-else to the music. I enjoyed being with friends and people watching but nothing else. Luckily, scalped tickets were cheaper once the show started.

In contrast, went to many shows at Cambridge House of Blues, Boston's Paradise Rock Club, and many other similarly sized venues. Best sound, best experiences.

Lucky now to live near the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester NY - a true gem among all the other venues around.

The one great stadium experience I had was seeing Billy Joel on his River of Dreams tour. I had seats behind the stage about six rows back. Billy Joel did about half the show with his piano lifted up in place of the drums and Liberty Devitto moved to where the piano had been, so suddenly, most of the people had the behind the stage seats and I was in row six. But other stadium/outdoor amphiteatre shows I’ve been to (Genesis, Peter Gabriel, The Who) have been kind of underwhelming affairs.

> deciding I didn’t want to see a show in a venue biger than 500 seats or spend more than $50 for it

I've reached a similar conclusion. I've broken my rule a few times, but just about all of them just reinforced my belief in my rule.

Here I tend to aim for venues where the tickets are $25-35. I'll order a couple and invite someone. I've had some of my best concert experiences this way, surpassing the large concerts I've been to by orders of magnitude.

I also find that in most cases, the sound is much better at smaller venues. That is, there are good spots and bad spots, but you can easily move around to a good spot and then it's really good. The large 2000+ venues I've been to have never had good sound, just decent at best.

The best shows I've been to the last 10 years have been at Reggie's in Chicago. Cheap, not too crowded, and lesser known but really talented bands. Reggie's hasn't changed over the years much - in the best kind of way.

There’s always risks with putting on a show - and the financial risks of underselling may be on the band.

It really depends. If there’s a promoter involved, they will give the band a guaranteed paycheck and collect the door for themselves. This is a big part of why merch sales are so important for touring groups. This is where they make most of their profits from the tour.

In the era of venues, ticket sellers and resellers being one and the same, a show is never really sold out. It's a marketing tool, yes, but in the context of the "underplay", it's also a way to limit supply, thus increasing the price of the ticket in order to collect fees on that inflated ticket price as many times as possible.

How am I supposed to know if I want to sign up for Bloomberg if I can't read any of the article, then accept cookies, and then get two nag screens? Dumbass website.

This is pretty normal on some level. I used to work in audio production and one of the jokes is that the end of an artists career usually resembles the beginning. I.e. older musicians 'classic rock' etc being relegated to largely county fairs and casinos once they have reached the peak of their fame and are on the backside.

Also production costs do tend to balloon dramatically each time you jump from clubs -> theaters, theaters -> arenas, arenas -> stadiums, etc.

I don't think that this is a primary dynamic for music. Partly, but not really to fans. I don't think fans are extra hyped because something sold out. It helps, but I don't think that's a motivating factor.

Within the industry - I can see that. Producers, managers, booking, PR, etc everyone loves the bandwagon.

And a big artists not selling as they would is kind of negative news, but I don't think that has anything to do with people respond to the next album.

- related article it seems (everything is a psy op https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/16/everything-we-like-is-a-ps...)

I'm sure this article could be a tweet.

it's the same concept as sales at Kohls

Because Brooklyn is finished.

Gross

ffs, artists aren’t in control of these prices or venues. LiveNation is. Remember LiveNation? Yeah, those assholes.

Livenation provides a useful role as a punching bag to the most popular artists. They need to seem accessible to the commoners, but their demand is so high, they can earn more money catering only to those willing to pay them the most.

Yes, Live Nation and Ticketmaster literally serve as "the bad guy" in the transaction. The truth is, due to market realities, ticket prices (MSRP, not reseller prices) need to be high so that everybody gets their cut. All those fees people lose their minds about? Those more or less pay out the promoters, because the artists are too chickenshit to roll the full costs into their bare ticket prices, and unrealistic ticket prices signal to fans that the artist "really has their best interests in mind". But it's all smoke and mirrors lol, if promoters don't get paid, no shows happen; if no shows happen, venues don't get paid. If there are no promoters or venues, shows are dead and artists don't get paid.

Considering all of that, everybody in the chain prefers and benefits from sold-out shows for myriad reasons, and all live performance is theatre at its core anyways, so IMO what's a little extra theatre on top to make sure the shows go on in this year of our Lord 2026, where very little is cheap and affordable?

This is not a reasonable take on what's actually happening. It's never been a reasonable take, but posting this today after Live Nation has literally just been found liable by a jury shows deep confusion.

The ticket prices are not high because of market realities. They're high because of illegal monopoly behavior that inflates costs and then steals the money and gives it to Michael Rapino and his friends. The behavior of Live Nation has been shown to be much closer to organized crime than what most people think of as standard business practice.

There's extensive on-the-record testimony and an official federal court verdict backing up my side of this argument.

Re: LN, I agree 100% with the evidence presented in, and outcome of, that trial; Live Nation absolutely deserves the verdict they received and it's amazing it took this long to get it. I just don't fully buy the idea that they (and they alone) are the reasons that tickets are priced the way that they are.

I guess I'm in the Lefsetz School of Thought [0][1] about it all (and I know, he's a polarizing personality, so I get it when people think he's full of shit), but I also think that two things can be right at the same time (Rapino and gang are criminals, ticket prices cost a lot because that's what they cost)

Maybe I'm wrong! I don't have much skin in this game man, I just personally find that his takes mirror what I see happening in real life to friends and colleagues who are artists, promoters and venue operators.

[0] https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2026/04/20/capping-resale/

[1] https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2026/04/15/live-nation-loses/

Livenation’s profit margins are not very impressive for a business that supposedly has pricing power.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/LYV/live-nation-en...

Are you suggesting Livenation’s leaders (Rapino, etc) are stealing from the other shareholders?

Looks like Liberty Live Group owns 30% of Livenation? And Rapino owns less than 2%, per Yahoo Finance.

https://www.libertyliveholdings.com/about

Page 31 of Livenation’s 2025 10-K shows $25B revenue, $19B direct operating expenses, and $4B selling, general, and admin expenses. I wonder how much of the expenses is not going to performers and the expenses of operating venues.

https://investors.livenationentertainment.com/sec-filings/an...

This is why they have gotten away with it for so long. It looks legit, until you realize they also OWN all those venue companies they are paying too. Not to mention Ticketmaster. The web is so deep that looking at just one entity makes it look like they have low margins and are just operating in this space, it’s not true at all.

They own StubHub so they’ll buy the tickets from themselves and “resell” them on StubHub for 5x-10x because people will pay it for a top line performer. It’s been well documented over the years if you do any kind of digging.

Shuffling money around between subsidiaries does not matter because it would still be reported on the same 10-K for the parent company (Livenation), and the revenues and expenses amongst itself cancel out.

For example, you don’t report revenue or expense from moving money from your right pocket to your left pocket.

That doesnt matter for the 10-k report. Its a fully consolidated financial statement. They have absolutely trash operating margins. If you look at their customers (artists and visitors) you see why

I don't think anyone is suggesting that Rapino is stealing from shareholders. We don't know how that money is spent or disbursed. What is clear from the case and settlement is that they were illegally maintaining a monopoly in the live entertainment industry that had stifled innovation and competition, and resulted in higher ticket prices for music fans.

The claim was that Livenation (or a few insiders) is benefiting from the higher prices. But the financials (low profit margins) don’t show that (absent fraud).

In which case, the benefit of the higher prices would be going to (some) performers. Which supports the claim that Livenation is useful as a punching bag for the most popular performers.

There's the occasional top performer that's in on it for sure. But yes, the few insiders are benefiting from higher prices.

I know these people personally. I'm telling you that it's true. I can think of one example where all the insiders created a startup in the ticketing space that had no reason to exist, really, and nothing worth buying solely so that they could acquire it and all the insiders could profit off of it. Lo and behold, COVID came along and made it so their plan made even less sense, and they just ran with it anyways. Money went straight from the stock market into their pockets.

There's a million examples, but again, a lot of the stuff is on the record. I'm sure Rapino is giving money to shareholders for the most part (being one is a pretty relevant part of that for him obviously) but he's doing it via illegal actions. He has made himself a billionaire in the process.

You can hedge however you want on that, but it's horrible and bad and your posts sound like they're defending it or acting like it's natural or normal in some way. It's not mitigated by the fact that someone like Ari Emanuel or a few guys in Nashville had their hand in the cookie jar too. Victims are millions of normal Americans, like me and you, and basically every working musician, except for a few special people at the top.

Watch this: https://youtu.be/u--se25_px8

Even Coachella, which was supposed to be an F-U to high ticket prices and Record Label red tape, is now $5,000/ticket.

> Livenation’s profit margins are not very impressive for a business that supposedly has pricing power.

Being skeptical of reported profit is a prerequisite for any conversation about entertainment industry accounting.

> Are you suggesting Livenation’s leaders (Rapino, etc) are stealing from the other shareholders?

Of course I am. These guys are basically mobsters.

> Page 31 of Livenation’s 2025 10-K shows $25B revenue, $19B direct operating expenses, and $4B selling, general, and admin expenses. I wonder how much of the expenses is not going to performers and the expenses of operating venues.

Lots. There is on-the-record testimony and hard evidence in the docket. They inflated prices and faked costs. They shuffled money between entities.

There's tons and tons of reporting, testimony and an official record of the federal courts of the United States of America, all covering these issues. You don't have to read that stuff, but if you haven't got any actual understanding of this issue, there's no reason to post about it.

This organization has been a willful, blatant lawbreaker for decades and a leech on an entire industry. I've seen it first hand. But again, you don't have to believe me. It's proven in a court.

They quite literally bribed their way out of this federal case but they somehow managed to get blindsided by the state AG's sticking around. It's only this miscalculation that's caused them to suffer any consequences at all for basically the first time in history.

> Being skeptical of reported profit is a prerequisite for any conversation about entertainment industry accounting.

If you are referring to Hollywood accounting, that has nothing to do with audited figured in SEC filings. Hollywood accounting is just poorly written contracts litigated in civil court.

Misstated financials in SEC filings are a criminal offense, which obviously could be happening, but I have yet to see any evidence.

> There's tons and tons of reporting, testimony and an official record of the federal courts of the United States of America, all covering these issues. You don't have to read that stuff, but if you haven't got any actual understanding of this issue, there's no reason to post about it.

So you are alleging the federal courts and prosecutors know about all of this fraud, provably, and are not indicting anyone. Which, of course, could be true due to corruption. I just haven’t seen a reputable article connecting all the dots, which is odd because it seems like the type of thing journalists like to publish.

Also, seems like the other Livenation shareholders would not like to be defrauded, so wouldn’t they be at least suing Livenation for their missing profits?

30% of livenation is owned by another publicly listed company, with majority voting shares held by this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Malone

He seems influential enough to not want to take missing profits on the chin. Or is he in on the fraud too?

You see where this starts needing a decent amount of evidence without sounding like a conspiracy theory.

Yes, of course. They are all in on the fraud.

This is like the equivalent of this economist joke:

https://www.econlib.org/bills-on-the-sidewalk/#:~:text=Kevin...

Has anyone not noticed that the Justice Department has literally been for sale? That we have stopped prosecuting white-collar crime in this country for a generation or two?

There's always a way. They hire the former prosecutor, they employ the children of congressmen. The money permeates everybody and everything. It's a criminal organization. It's obvious to anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention.

The idea that you can tell that people aren't committing white-collar crime because they haven't been prosecuted is a hilarious assumption.

It's not a conspiracy theory. It's right out in the open. They think they won't ever face real actual personal consequences. They're probably right.

1000% this.

"Money. The answer is always money."

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