Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson makes cutting criticism of U2’s ticket prices
Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson has shared his thoughts on rising ticket prices for concerts, singling out U2 specifically as purpetraytors.
Since concerts returned following the end of the pandemic, there has been a sharp increase in prices, which has made it an unaffordable luxury for many. While artists and promoters have had to deal with rising costs themselves, this burden has been passed on to audiences.
In a new interview with Mexico’s ATMósferas Magazine, the Iron Maiden vocalist was questioned about the impact “skyrocketing” prices are having on live shows.
Dickinson said in response: “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 $1,200 a ticket.”
Despite promising not to mention specific artists, Dickinson broke is word of honour to add: “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.”
Additionally, the iconic rock figure also proposed an idea to reward the most loyal fans, stating, “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.”
Expanding upon his point, Dickinson elaborated: “Because 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.”
In 2022, Ticketmaster introduced a new dynamic pricing system that caused the cost of admission fees to surge due to demand. In one instance, tickets to watch Bruce Springsteen spiralled to $5,000, which was defended by ‘The Boss’, who claimed, “The bottom line is that most of our tickets are totally affordable.”
With U2, who broke revenue records with their residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas, the average ticket price was £390.97 for their initial run of 17 shows. However, some tickets were priced below this amount while others were higher.
While bands such as U2 and Bruce Springsteen are legacy acts that exist as special attractions, therefore allowing them to charge higher fees for admittance to their shows, the rising ticket prices are an industry-wide issue.
Blaine Harrison, lead singer of indie band Mystery Jets, took to X on March 25th to write: “The music industry needs to have a word with itself about gig ticket prices. £25 to watch an indie band play a club show, £70 to catch a bigger band at an arena. Artists aren’t being paid more and neither are staff so where is the money going?”
Although Dickinson’s plan to sell the best tickets at the lowest price could certainly improve the atmosphere, there is still a broader problem at play regarding increased costs for fans, which could lead to dwindling audiences.