Bruce Dickinson recently spoke with Mexico’s ATMósferas Magazine about high concert ticket prices.
The frontman shared his thoughts on today’s music scene. He wondered why fans should pay $1,200 for a concert ticket and used U2’s Las Vegas show as an example:
“Well, two things. One, it depends what the show is and kind of who the audience are. I mean, I’m not gonna go around and say specific artists because most of the artists that are charging, like, 1,200 dollars a ticket — like in Las Vegas, if you wanna go and see the U2 show, I think it was 1,200 dollars per seat in the sphere. I’ve got no interest in paying 1,200 dollars to go and see U2 in the sphere — none. A hundred bucks, maybe. But for me, what’s important is to try and keep, on the one hand, the right type of tickets at the right price.”
Why Front-Stage Tickets Should Be Cheaper
He continued, detailing why concert tickets should be balanced:
“So by that I mean the right type of tickets, I mean, the tickets that are in front of the stage, which everybody says should be the most expensive tickets. Actually, no, they should be the most reasonably priced tickets, ’cause the people who are gonna go there to the front of the stage are gonna be people who are real fans, people who are kids, people who can’t afford the crazy money, but they are the people that need to be down the front; they’re the people that are gonna keep this music alive.”
Different Fan Needs
Dickinson talked about another type of audience:
“And then you get the people that they might be fans, but they wanna bring their wife, and they don’t wanna get too hot and sweaty and all the rest of it. So, there’s some seats at the top or something else like that, what they’re gonna pick, and those get priced differently.”
The singer released his new solo album, ‘The Mandrake Project,’ on March 1. His seventh solo album includes keyboardist Mistheria and drummer Dave Moreno. Last month, Dickinson announced the addition of two new guitarists, Philip Näslund and Chris Declercq, to his solo touring band. Their first performance will be at The Observatory in Orange County, California, on April 15.
Watch the rest of Bruce’s conversation below.
