Mayday's ticket is really expensive. I know it is worth to buy tickets of excellent artists ...but that lose the point, isn't it? They are suppossed to give inspiration and powers.
I guess that is how band get "fame" and becomes commercial. The more expensive their tickets the more crowds they get. Which means, people thought price equals to quality. This makes the whole market change.

Ryea, Taipei, Taiwan

who cares!!!! who would party with dinosaurs????

Charles Fuchs, Florence, Italy

I paid £60 for an Old Trafford Genesis ticket, which seemed reasonable and wasn't the cheapest seat by any means. Sloppy reporting! Why should I believe anything in this article?

I also had a go at the Manchester Evening News for their appalling "review" of the Genesis concert, written by someone who hates their music and didn't see the concert either. What is the British press coming to?

Andy, Isle of Man,

I bought tickets for my husband to see MUSE at the new Wembley Stadium. He said the show was great and he enjoyed it, but the sound quality was awful.

£90.00 was a lot of money for poor sound quality.

Tracey, Surrey, UK

They can charge all they want. Who are we to say that the amount is too high? If the stands are no longer filled, then the price will be corrected. I personally wont pay the prices today for the tickets. I feel they are too high for my budget when the singers are flying around in their private jets already.

James, Cary, NC

I work for a ticket agency and I go to alot of concerts (not at reduced price I need to add!!) The stadium gigs are always overated with only the VIP's obtaining the best seats-1000's of "free" tickets gobbled up by the corporate boys to entertain clients/family/employees whilst the real fans pay over the nose for seats at the back of the stadium- to look up at a screen they could see when they buy the DVD. I wont pay over 60.00 to see anyone now...I prefer to watch out for gigs at the larger theatres-great atmosphere and much more intimate...not the most "up to minute" acts but much better value for money at between £25.00-35.00. This year I am seeing Natasha Beddingfield and Kate Rusby and recently i saw Marti Pellow- never a fan of his but he had a terrific voice and the music was amazing. Music fans should remember its the experience rather than the headliner names.. go along to your local pub for 8.00 a ticket and see a great unknown.. or check out the theatres much better value!

Hazel, Leeds, UK

Ticket prices for large scale gigs no longer represent value for money and I have stopped going after years of concert going. I am still a music fan so I now support local small-scale events where the cost is low, view and atmosphere are great and you generally don't have to queue for hours to get out or drive long distances to get home.
Check out what local promotors are doing - it's easy with Google - and you might catch a future star. Next week Sunny Sweeney is playing a small gig near Buckingham which will be better than anything at Wembley.

Paul Saxton, Towcester, UK

Why shouldn't we have to pay to see concerts - after all, people are increasing reluctant to pay for recorded music.

Peter Rivendell, Manchester, UK

I'll pay those high price - or double! Triple even! The moment Sinatra rises from the dead and sings again.

Until then I'll pay no more than five dollars, take it or leave it.

Alvin Toffler, Bedrock, USA

yes..it's the same thing with cd's...fans will find some other way to get it for free or less..take heed..

derrick brown, kingston, jamaica..w.i

You could not give me tickets for this agenda driven B.S. on global warming. This whole issue is a joke that people buy into. Man's effect is so small even though I think we should take care of our planet. But this junk science has gone to far

Galen Van Kooten, Phoenix, USA/AZ

Haha. As has been mentioned, its just supply and demand. The mp3s are free on p2p, so now the ticket price has to go up. If you can't afford to go see your favourite bands now, you need to get a better job instead of complaining. The market has changed, get used to it.

Contayjen, Maidenhead, UK

The job of putting a ticket in an envelope and charging £4.00 for doing so must be the easiest and best paid in the UK. Then there is the ticket price itself, the booking fee, the car park charge, the overpriced beer etc etc. I've stopped going now after years of going to loads of concerts when they were fairly priced.

Stephen Gell, Leek, UK

I saw the Genesis concert in Paris last Saturday . Ticket face value was €75 - I paid about the same in £ after postage and booking fees so don't see where you get your numbers from for that event.
Technically the event wasn't sold out but there were a hell of a lot of people there and the Parc des Princes holds a good few I can assure you.
Was it worth it ? - yes it was spectacular.

geospace, Hope Valley, UK

Supply and demand. Market forces. What the market will bear. Vote with your feet and wallet. These greedy mega-stars and their entourage will get the message sooner rather than later.

Andrew Milner, Yokohama, Kanagawa

Almost the biggest insult involved in buying a ticket to a rock concert these days, is the fact the advertising for these events never mentions the price of tickets, let alone the booking fees, postage fees and whatever else they can add on to ramp up the price.

Max Kay, London, UK

The top amount I would pay for a ticket is £125 and I think the ticket prices you are quoting are a mistake, as in general I pay about £40, although they stuff rediculous "service charges" on top of up to £10.

I object to the size of the venues now, it just isn't worth going if you are a mile from the stage as the tickets shouldn't be worth more than £20 at that distance. I have looked at Wembley Stadium now and I would never buy a ticket more than a third of the way from the stage. I think the promoters, the artists, etc., are just too greedy regardless of their loss of income they are alienating their fans.

Christine in Hayes, Hayes, Middlesex, England

Ticket costs have to cover 'the huge costs of such things as Streisand’s 58-piece orchestra'? Tickets for the Proms start at a fiver, and you can get 100+ piece orchestras and stellar soloists. I think it is pure ego-massaging to charge ever increasing prices as agents and promoters try to show their artists are the best.

Graham, London,

Lets not forget that Prince priced his London tickets at £31.21 and he has almost sold out 21 shows at the o2 arena at 20,000 per show.

Surely this is the way to go !!

David Paylor, Barnsley, South Yorkshire

The view expressed about overpriced tickets is disingenuous...yes, some bands ARE charging excessive prices and just touring for the money.....but other bands are charging very fair prices...Genesis at a top price of £65 can hardly be accuse of ripping off fans with their lavish stage show....and the Rolling Stones have sold out the Dome for two nights and virtually a third. You can go and see them for £70....how much woud the Opera or ballet cost? I saw them at the Stade de France....no rows of empty seats there!!! Only the 20,000 taken out of action by their huge stage and lighting rigs. Obviously we all have our 'top' price above which we're not prepared to pay - and fans will make that judgement themselves. Don't know about selling out the Manchester Arena....but last time i looked at seats for Streisand in Manchester, they were still available in Block A....right at the front near the stage!!!! If people avoid ticket agencies and touts, you pays your money and takes your choice.

David Robinson, Cheshire, UK

I have a Genesis ticket for the London Twickenham show (first few rows) in front of me. Face Value £65, which is nowhere near £110. I suggest you do proper research in future, instead of using google to find tout prices.

Alan Green, Croydon,

I'm a student, and in contrast to some views, that means I don't have money to burn. I work hard for my money at a crappy Saturday job, and music is one of my passions - I'm a singer myself. I love bands like Bon Jovi and the Rolling Stones but there's no way I could ever afford to see them - the tickets cost a month's wages and that would mean I couldn't even eat. The only people who get to go to gigs now are the rich people. True, some of them might be real fans, but I bet there are equal numbers of people with normal sized incomes who simply can't afford to pay the ridiculous prices charged.

The bands and the record companies should stop ripping us off - nowhere needs to charge any more than £50 a ticket at the most!

Helena Longman, London,

Prince tickets for just over thirty quid at the O2 Arena, just shows you how much of the ticket prices are actually production costs. Like the Stones or Barbara Streisand need more money!

andy schwab, worcester, uk

60 Euro's to see The Who in Cork Ireland Saturday 30th June is hardly a rip-off ?

Streisland is seriously pushing credibility on her ticket prices though.

Eddie Burgess, Cork, Ireland

CDs were, and are, too expensive. So we started downloading instead. Now concerts are too expensive so we don't go. This should not come as a surprise, and the artists, and more important the corporations behind them, should stop trying to moneygrab.

If they priced things a bit more reasonably we might go the shop to buy the record, or to the stadium to watch them live. We are well aware that physically producing a CD costs pennies, so we question why we should pay 10 - 15 pounds for the album. The same goes for the concert ticket, if Streisand et al make 10s of millions of dollars each time they tour it doesn't take long for the public to figure out the tickets are overpriced.

Matt Law, Abingdon,

Being quick off the mark on the day the tickets went on sale, I got 4 of the best seats to see Genesis at Old Trafford, and they only cost £65 each + the £8 per ticket Ticketmaster service charge. For a band of this calibre I'd say that's fair. Those overinflated prices look like the ones offered as "hot seat" packages. They should be banned, so that every punter gets a fair crack at buying a ticket at the basic prices.

Rik Green, Lancaster,

Well frankly that is a load of dingo's kidneys. My Genesis ticket (Poland) cost me £19. Friends attending the Old Trafford gig were paying £50-60 per ticket. My Vue Cinema live broadcast ticket cost me £10. If these "people" who write these articles actually looked into the production costs behind such tours they'd understand why ticket prices have gone up over the years. It's pure logic. The stage cost goes up, so does the ticket price. What's so difficult to understand about that? Unbelievable.

Ian, Bolton, UK

You should specify what prices you are comparing. Are you talking about ticket touts or official prices? You report the Police concert in London starting from £110 but in fact I bought tickets for that show and they cost £45 + presale rights for a total of £50.25 each.

Andy S, Guildford, GB

I was keen to see the Police given that my sister loved them growing up so I learnt to like them, but at the prices asked they are having a laugh......given that the Smashing Pumpkins played at the Shepherds Bush Empire last week and tickets cost £37 and they are way better that Barb's, the Stones etc I know where my hard earned is going!

Fredi, Battersea,

I've been at 3 Stones concert and the tickets cost on average 92 Euros each !!! And my ticket for Slane only cost 89 Euros

So where are you getting these prices from. Is this an example of lazy Inter-Net journalism?

Andrew Brennan, Dundalk, Ireland

Give me many dinosaurs singing and acting like Barbra Streisand
To see a legend alive has no price

Massias, Casablanca, Morocco

Don't they have enough money already?

If they didn't spend so much on lavish lifestyles they might have saved enough to retire gracefully instead of having to fleece the poor old fans

David, St Albans, UK

Go see an opera. It's cheaper, lasts longer, and does less damage to your hearing.

H., Providence,

Appalling piece of journalism - your facts are plain WRONG. If you had done any kind of proper research you would know that you sources are basically rip off ticket touts with a web site. The prices they are quoting are what they are trying to fleece their "customers" for, not the face value of the tickets. Their markup can be in excess of 300%. It is lazy, shoddy work like this that undermines peoples trust in journalists

Robert, Basingstoke, Hants

I'm only paying 63 euros to see the Stones in Rome; the tickets plus flights to and from London still cost less than the price of 2 tickets at the O2 in London.

Anne, London,

Ohhhh my god this has made our lives completeee!!
From Lily And Kirsty from waingels college
xxxxxxxxx

GIRL POWERRR!

kirsty, reading, england

Hihi, typical british accepting overinflated prices

Jan, Hamburg,

Do not blame them for asking astronomical prices for their concerts , blame you for paying money that in some countries would keek families for months.Where is the young people's conscience ?

Frank, Mallorca, Spain

I think the sources of these ticket prices are not the best place to get this information from. Face value of front row Genesis tickets at Twickenham, for example, is £65. Not cheap, but not in the £110-£295 range.

If Events Worldwide or Sold Out Event Tickets are selling for those sorts of prices, they're the ones who are inflating the prices, not the bands.

Ian, Reading, Berkshire, England

I'm not sure about the other two bands, but the prices that you are quoting for Genesis must be from a well known on-line auction site.

Their most expensive seats on tour are GBP60 / EUR 90.

Alastair, Guildford, UK,

Personally, I think that the way concert promoters sell massive numbers of tickets for big-name acts and cram thousands of fans into unsuitable venues is despicable.

Last summer, I saw Robbie Williams live at the Milton Keynes 'Bowl' - for which, read: 'field with a bank around one edge absolutely miles from the stage, with the view blocked by obscene scaffolding'. It cost forty-odd pounds and we were still jammed against everyone else, still deafened by the overwrought sound system and still couldn't see the stage. We had to be there six hours early to watch an eighty-minute - admittedly very good - performance and then be herded like cattle through the gates to a packed train that was two hours late getting us home while he left in a helicopter!

When you add up the cost of travelling, food and drink on the day and the concert itself, these price are simply not justified for the quality of experience you get; the OFT should come down on them like a ton of hot bricks.

Mark Thomas, Biddulph, Staffs, England

Business is business.
These dinosaurs are businessmen, not musicians. They want to gear more and more. Why?
They are greedy.
They don't work for people, they work for the 20-roomed house in a row.
Pity.

Ivan, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Can we be sure the figures quoted in this article are accurate ? I am going to see Genesis next weekend and paid face value, £45, for my ticket.

That is not unreasonable for a concert that runs to 2 and a half hours by a world supergroup.

I suggest that the figures quoted for Genesis are for black market / re - sale value or from ticket agencies with a high mark up.

Mark Brafield, Guildford,

Another example of greedy, grasping entertainers, their managers, agents, and other hangers-on.

Another part of the problem is the insistence on playing only in huge, expensive, impersonal arenas where half the audience can only see small dots on the stage and have to watch monitors!

Terry, Berkshire, UK

I have to say George Michael did not cancel for the above reason, don't even know why he is included in this story. He cancelled due to an accident with one of his trucks containing stage and equipment whilst in transit to his next venue. Thus resulting in cancelation due to damaged equipment, but has now been rescheduled, covering 2 nights, as could only book a smaller venue and his tickets were not over priced.

Yes, Liverpool, england

All these singers have been performing for up to 50 years. Given that they are all very rich, I would have hoped that they would have performed and given the proceeds for charity.
This is all another example of the greed of the 'celebrity'. When you think you are so unique and talented, you think it is OK to pay yourselves more than any one else.........because you are worth it!

John K. Richards, Trikala, Greece

Kudos then to Prince who is charging 31.21 pounds for all his concerts in the UK this summer. His shows seem to be all sold out.
I saw the Stones last year and must say the show was OK, Jagger was good, Keith... his guitar work was awful! I've never been more dissapointed with a guitarist. On the other hand I saw Prince on his Hit and Run tour, he played guitar, piano, drums as well as singing and dancing up a storm - value for money!!!!
Barbara is so overrated anyway... BTW, I don't recal the last Genesis album of note... Invisible Touch was their last hurrah if I recall. You shouldn't be able to charge so much if you haven't had a number one or hit album or single in decades!
So they got their just deserts for overcharging!

James Hunter, Cologne,

I was at the Stones concert in Stade de France and it was very far from "thinly populated". I paid £60 for a front of stage ticket which left me 6 feet from the band. Absolute bargain in my book.

Rob Graham, London, London

Tickets for the Stones at the OLYMPIC stadium Rome are from Euro 60 -180. Is your article an example of Victor Borge's inflationary language?

Philip Lawman, Benevento, Campania

You are quoting prices from ticket touting agencies. Please get your facts straight.

Rob Graham, London, London

Who cares. The market will sort itself out.

Long live capitalism.

Marek, London,

The Old Trafford Tickets for Genesis cost £65 each and the fact that you used ticket brokers as a point of reference rather than ticketmaster who officially handled the ticket sales doesn't help your argument.

Gareth Schofield, Wigan, United Kingdom

I paid £55 for my Genesis ticket, Ticketmaster charged a booking fee on top. I'm paying to see a band I love, they have not ripped of their fans, but there are plenty of people trying to make money on the back of it. This is gutter journalism and I expect better from the Times, check your facts before including a band who at the end of the current European tour are performing free to 400,000 Europeans having invested £10million on the set to entertain people ready and willing to pay.

Mike Bowler, Bournemouth, UK

Well here's my experience:

UK tickets are £60
Manchester tickets are £65
Paris tickets £60
Lyon tickets £60

wotchaofsykes, Brighton,

I only paid £60 for my Genesis tickets to see them at Twickenham. Where are you getting your prices from?

kebworth92, Welwyn , UK

That's one theory. Ticket prices.

Or, maybe interest is fading in these mouldy oldies should just retire or stick to the Las Vegas circuit.

Lori, toronto, Canada

Oooh, poor Barbra Streisand and co. not making as much money as they used to on record sales... It's a hard life. You got to feel sorry for those millionaires.
Seriously, I think the Stones, Genesis, etc. are just insulting their fans by asking for so much. It's another example of how the rich and famous get too greedy.
I saw the Stones in Paris in 1995 for about GBP30 and it was great. No way, would I pay 495 quid! Are they worth it? I don't think so.

Caroline, Brisbane, Australia

Bowie was right, and that's exactly how it should be, and has been through the whole of human history, with itinerant musicians etc. The idea of charging for recorded music will be regarded as a brief historical aberration.

Adela, Peterborough,

The internet has nothing to do with it. It is a massive victory for common sense that so few people are prepared to pay three figure sums to observe a warbling fossil from 500 feet away.

Simon Clark, London,

Surely part of the blame should go to those theiving ticket touts who have no interests in the music but buy up all the tickets anyway to sell at a huge profit on e-bay.

Those who desperately want to see their musical heroes are prepared to pay a high price and robbed of the chance to buy their tickets legally fill the pockets of these crooks. Better surely to fill the pockets of the artist.

Pricing at a premium has always kept away the unsavoury element (tea at the Ritz etc) and you can hope that by the artists pricing their tickets high, the touts aren't going to be interested in the first place.

Paul Ritchie, Southampton,

So Europeans are refusing to pay top dollar to see a bunch of tired old has-beens. What a surprise.

David, Tacoma, WA, USA

Most of these people are dinosaurs.There is a lot of good music out there at reasonable prices.Just go out and find it.

Michael Rigby, Chorley, Lancs, England

"Britain is the exception to the fans' revolt"

Yes, as usual, we Brits, with cow like docility, just pay up and grumble. It's not just concert prices, it's prices across the board.

S. Delaney, London,

I don´t go to these megastars´ big arena-concerts very often. it´s not just the high ticket prices but also the sterile big venue atmosphere that puts me off. though i bought a ticket for the stones´ hamburg gig on august 15 (i only paid 109 EURO, by the way) i normally prefer artists doing club concerts. early this week i watched the stones´ former excellent lead guitarist Mick Taylor performing in a club here in Hamburg. He was fantastic as ever and I even got an autograph after the show. it was a great night out on the tiles at a ticket price of just 23 Euro.

asta, hamburg, germany