Old Man Rants

Why I No Longer Enjoy Music Concerts

Last Edited: 2024-09-30 17:13:21

Lore

Once upon a time, I wore a story with pride from a concert I went to. My claim was that "inadvertently started the fires at Ozzfest 1997". Now that I'm an old person, I know that's not the greatest thing to be proud of, but let me explain. I didn't really start the fires. Those many years ago I used to cover my guitar with stickers. You could barely see any wood anymore. I collected a bag full of stickers from the various radio stations' and bands' booths for my guitar. I was out in general admission because I've never had money. Although I was far from the pit, there were still numerous little mini-pits for the peasants on the grass. I'm walking to where my friends and I were hanging out and one of these mini-pitters smashed into me and I dropped my bag. Stickers fell out, guy surprisingly said "sorry, dude" and I went to pick up the stickers. I didn't have a picture since we didn't even have cell phones yet so here is an AI picture:

I'm squatted down picking up stickers and people start skipping by, because they're part of the mini-pits, and skipping has always been the gangsta way of not walking, but not running either. As I'm looking down, trash keeps flying into my pile of stickers, a piece of newspaper, lots of soda cups, a hotdog wrapper, etc. I start looking around thinking, "what's wrong with people!?" although I don't see any particular person or group of people throwing trash. All of a sudden, here comes a soda cup that's lit on fire! And another one! And another one! I paid my respects to my stickers that now I could not retrieve due to the excess dirt and flames, and walked away. Hoping that I was also walking away from criminal charges. I didn't do it.

Crowds

Of course, I'm an old grumpy man so crowds are the worst, that goes without saying. I probably say this very often, but there does seem to be an increasing percentage of per capita stupidity in the world and it's not getting any better. However I can pinpoint a couple different things about crowds in general.

Entitlement: for some reason a lot more people these days feel like even though everyone else bought the same ticket they have, they deserve more than everyone else.

Screaming for no reason: I've never understood why women when they get excited will just start screaming like they're being stabbed. I get it, you probably have a crush on someone on stage and you've never been this close, but I paid to listen to music and not you screaming. I'm also going to tack on the "I love you" women who literally scream that like NIckelback's going to stop playing and crowd surf over to you to be your love. Errr. I've asked my stepdaughters why when they were little they would just scream when playing. "I don't know, just excited" was the answer. I don't get it. Either way, that person always sits to my right.

Singing off-key, loudly, with or without the correct words: I like to sing along with music, so I can't be too upset, but man some people should just not sing or lower their volume to a one. They crescendo their muddle words usually followed by a "WOOOOOOO!!". Again, paid to hear them, not you. This person always sits to my left.

The Lead Singer

It's bad enough the crowd doesn't shut it, and they cannot sing, but then the lead singer encourages them to sing!? They can't sing! I think the singer's just had it. Like, "I've sang this same burnt out song 13,000 times, you sing it. I'll get paid either way." It's just lazy.

Ticketmaster

The number one reason for writing this rant - Ticketmaster, or Live Nation. I would think if they read this they would laugh at the fact that their business practices makes my blood boil. Who has to audacity to charge people $20 per person fees for just showing up to their website!? You would think that fee covers things but it doesn't, there are still more fees. Fees cause they want to. Fees cause they can. We've even called places to get tickets to get around Ticketmaster to find that some venues don't even sell their own tickets anymore! Looks like they are being investigated to see if they qualify as a monopoly too. But of course in the world of rich getting richer, I'm sure they'll be fined like a million dollars. After making 22 billion dollars last yer, I'm sure that million will hurt them bad. They may need a bandaid.

They almost made 2 billion dollars in 2020 when there weren't any concerts because of COVID. How's that!? Ever try to get a refund from Ticketmaster? That's a whole 'nother blog post.

So you've done it, I've done it, we've all bit the bullet and paid their outrages fees to go see concerts or events that my wife wants to go see. I'm good. I've got the internet. Evidently, my wife likes to see the humans doing things and I love her so I pay. Err.. Anyway, if you hadn't hear, Live Nation and Ticketmaster got hacked, or possibly more correctly a third part company that they use got hacked and it looks like names, emails and partial credit card information? The hackers reached out to Live Nation, they weren't interested in paying the ransom - which I can understand because it's criminals stealing from crooks, so the hackers gave away the first million records for free. That was nice of them. some sources It looks like it goes deeper into a cover up (oooh! Drama!!) because the second source there states that a cybersecurity firm reported connections to the third party company and then removed the post! Which makes sense because with everyone denying it, Ticketmaster could stand to lose a very impossibly small percentage of sales.

(Update 2024-09-30) I don't remember how I ran across this, I think ticketmaster emailed it to me. Not just me, but everybody. I think it's in response to all the hate that goes out to them on the interwebs for long queues, outrageous fees, websites not working, etc. You can read it here, "The Truth About Ticket Prices" where they seem to go about how they're not really making that much money anyway. They only make 7% commission while these OtHeR CoMpAniES make more commission. Of course, they don't go into the math of like company A is taking 15% of $200 while company B is taking 7% of $22 billion. We just have to remain bad at math.

Concessions and Parking

Where else can you buy 13 cents worth of popcorn for $20!? Can you bring in your own snacks? (I mean, we do) No! How else can we bend you over the keg? How do you expect us to rob you when you take defensive measures? You can give me $20 to park your car here, or you can walk 4 blocks where you can meet your mugger which will take at least the $20 that I'd be charging you for parking at the place you pay to be at.

Solutions

Boycott Ticketmaster is really all I've got. The rest can't really be changed with the greed of man. If it's not one person robbing you, it'll be another.

Why I No Longer Enjoy Music Concerts

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