VERY OFF TOPIC: "So many nights I just dream of the ocean, God I wish I was sailing again...."

Day-Tripper

Day-Tripper

5-Year Member
Joined
May 16, 2014
Messages
893
Just spouting.

In 1986 I paid $15 to see Jimmy Buffett play at the Worcester Centrum in Massachusetts. It was January. It was cold. They're was 8 inches of snow the night before the concert. Jimmy Buffett had long hair.

It was cheap enough for an early 20-something to afford.

Today I learned Jimmy Buffett would be playing in the Boston area this summer. Tickets are $250 per person.

WTF?

This wonderful inflation calculator I use (http://www.coinnews.net/tools/cpi-inflation-calculator/) claims that a 1986 price tag of $15 should cost $34 in 2019. Not $250. Not even close.

And Jimmy Buffett (now bald & sober) still pretty much plays the same songs as he did in 1986.

I'm a big Jimmy Buffett fan & can afford the 2019 ticket prices, but I won't go. Just can't do it. Sorry, Jimmy (Inc.)

When I grew up in the city in late-1970s the Boston Red Sox had day-of-game bleacher seats available for $1. Later $2 by 1979. Today? Have to buy 'em online by late winter at $30 a piece.

And don't me started on college tuition. Movie tickets. Cars. Apartment prices. Condos. Houses.

Financially, I'm doing OK.

But today's teens, 20-30 year olds don't seem to have the same financial freedom (and less stress) that I enjoyed in the 1970s-1980s.

Going to see Jimmy Buffett didn't cost 3 days pay back in those days.
 
Yep, a lot of items have gone up more than inflation.

We do get really good deals on TVs though!
 
I saw Springsteen for the first time in 1984. 30 bucks a ticket. I've seen him many times since. Last time in 2016, I took the whole family. 1300 bucks. I feel your pain. I heard people were gladly paying over 2k for the "On Broadway" shows. What a shame.
 
But in the 60's we could walk to Woodstock. I was on leave and could not get there. I love Jimmy and he is on my bucket list. He was supposed to play at USNA when my DD was there but it was canceled. She was going to get me tickets. I did get to work as a roadie for Black Wind and Fire for a College appearance though. Love the old days.
 
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Big JB fan as well. Have seen him about three times. Once in Hawaii after he broke his foot. Once while at Universal years ago with my kids. We could hear the music already when we walked around a corner and he was in a crowd of Caribbean dressed women and he had a big snake around his neck. He was doing a video. My daughter is a fan and has seen him with her friends. He plays in Virginia Beach in August and I hope to make it down there for my wife's birthday. I've seen the ticket prices. Scary.
 
scoutpilot said:
Thanks again, Boomers.
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Yup, its the boomers fault for inventing MP3's and music sharing services and then FORCING millenials to use them. If you know anything about the music business then and the music business now, then you understand that concerts THEN were about driving demand for people to buy Record, CDs and tapes. In this era of media widely available for free (or nearly so), the concerts are where the bands make their money so they have raised ticket prices to astronomical levels. Yeah those damned boomers and their streaming and torrent sites. Of course, I don't know many boomers who actually USE torrent sites. . . those are mostly millenials but its still the boomers fault
 
cb7893 said:
OldRetSWO said:
its the boomers fault for inventing MP3's and music sharing services
Click to expand...

Napster founder and Mark Zuckerberg enabler, Sean Parker is definitely not a boomer.
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Napster, nice! More a Gen-X thing than Millennial. Maybe even uniquely Xennial… After all, it was Metallica and Dre that sued them for all their songs getting pirated constantly on there, not Nelly and Death Cab for Cutie...;)
 
OldRetSWO is on this: tickets used to be sold to drive music sales, but today they are a core source of income. Instead of pricing them to draw a broad audience, they are now set to the highest price that will still allow them to fill a venue. If Bruce and Jimmy and The Who (?!?) have fans with a ton of disposable income then those acts will price tickets to extract the maximum money from those affluent folks. (They may also have fans who don't want to spend $250 to hear old guys miss the high notes, but those folks usually were already harvested back when they bought CDs in 1986, or albums in 1976.)
 
StPaulDad said:
OldRetSWO is on this: tickets used to be sold to drive music sales, but today they are a core source of income. Instead of pricing them to draw a broad audience, they are now set to the highest price that will still allow them to fill a venue. If Bruce and Jimmy and The Who (?!?) have fans with a ton of disposable income then those acts will price tickets to extract the maximum money from those affluent folks. (They may also have fans who don't want to spend $250 to hear old guys miss the high notes, but those folks usually were already harvested back when they bought CDs in 1986, or albums in 1976.)
Click to expand...

Uh...yeah. Ain't a lot of milennials paying $250 to see Jimmy Buffett looking like re-animated beef jerky up there.

Boomers absolutely ran, and still run, the music industry. Do you think the majority of profits from those record sales went to the artists? Oh, sweet summer child...

(PS: MP3s were absolutely invented by Baby Boomers, and the single greatest disruptive force in the history of music was some guy named Steven Jobs.)
 
scoutpilot said:
Boomers absolutely ran, and still run, the music industry. Do you think the majority of profits from those record sales went to the artists? Oh, sweet summer child...
Click to expand...

"Oh, sweet summer child!" is what Little Richard would say upon reading that statement. He, James Brown, Elvis Presley, et. al. were ripped off by the "Greatest Generation."

The Boomers: The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa defended the ownership rights to their material. Sean Parker sold the keys to their houses.
 
StPaulDad said:
OldRetSWO is on this: tickets used to be sold to drive music sales, but today they are a core source of income. Instead of pricing them to draw a broad audience, they are now set to the highest price that will still allow them to fill a venue. If Bruce and Jimmy and The Who (?!?) have fans with a ton of disposable income then those acts will price tickets to extract the maximum money from those affluent folks. (They may also have fans who don't want to spend $250 to hear old guys miss the high notes, but those folks usually were already harvested back when they bought CDs in 1986, or albums in 1976.)
Click to expand...

That was pretty damn astute.
 
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