Ticketmaster and Live Nation have destroyed the concert experience. But it didn’t use to be this way. Today, Oasis and Taylor Swift tickets might go for thousands of dollars, but back in 1955, you could see Elvis Presley in concert for less than the modern-day equivalent of $20.

  • cpw
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    9 days ago

    I paid £22.50 for my Knebworth ticket to see Oasis in 1996. Beer was expensive but the lines were so long that two or three was all that was feasible. Instead I got stoned off my face and zoned out on a little hill behind the vip area. It was amazing but I was so smashed that my memory is fuzzy. Ah well. My sister just paid over £1000 for four tickets to oasis. I think I got a rather better deal than her.

    • Oxymoron@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Haha nice. That’s a damn good deal to be fair, cos if not confused then 1996 was more or less the peak of their career, so not like it was an early one where they would be cheaper.

      I always hear of the Knebworth place and understand it’s pretty famous so I suppose that should be a clue that they were big then. Cos assuming it’s a big area (field if I’m not mistaken…).

      £250 a ticket is pretty crazy. That’s gotta be close to a weekend ticket at Reading and Leeds I would think and you’d see loads of big bands there for that price, including the camping.

      • cpw
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        8 days ago

        Heh. My reading 1996 ticket was less that £50. I can’t remember exactly now, but it wasn’t super expensive. Saw the last? live performance of the stone roses after their brief reunion. Also saw the weddos that day, by far the most fun. The smosh pit for it was amazing.

        Knebworth was kinda legendary in the 70s and 80s, lots of huge bands did a “festival” there on occasion. And yeah, 1996 Oasis was by far their tiptop peak. Weirdly I actually saw Oasis once before, they were touring small(ish) pub venues a few weeks before cigarettes and alcohol was released, at the Cambridge boat race. Quite the show. They played a bunch of songs that’d be on definitely maybe.