Festival season is here. Are concerts becoming a luxury for AC students?
Festival and concert tickets are more costly than ever, but students like Lucas Bear are enjoying the best of both worlds by volunteering at events to save money without sacrificing fun.
“After a while, I started noticing the volunteer community in Bluesfest, and someone told me that if you volunteer, you’d get to go for free,” Bear said. “I started volunteering every year since then. I started volunteering for CityFolk, and even Dragon Boat. I realized if I volunteer for stuff, I can start seeing the shows for free.”
Bear, a tourism and hospitality student, has made good use of his resources by getting involved with the festival community and fostering helpful connections.
“It gives you more opportunities to meet other people in the space to give you a spare ticket or know how to get you one,” Bear said. “Once you are part of the concert community, it gets a little bit easier and a little bit cheaper. People will know you’re a concert person and think of you.”
Single-band concerts can be different because volunteering is not always an option. Resellers are a root cause for limited tickets and skyrocketing prices. Business marketing students Lotus Fakhrani and Abigail Mehari are adapting to inflated costs by finding second jobs to balance with school.
“It’s so expensive. It’s unaffordable to go to a concert at this point. Especially when you work minimum wage and you’re doing part-time because you also have school,” Fakhrani said. “It was almost $1,000 just for regular general admission for The Weeknd in Toronto. That’s why I went to the Montreal one, because it was $300 and it’s all floor.”
Many concert-goers who want to save money will purchase tickets with an obstructed view for a discounted price.
“It is a luxury going to front row concerts,” Mehari said. “The cheaper (tickets) are not the best seats either. You’d be far back, you can barely see the artist in front performing, and it doesn’t even sound right.”
Music lovers are sticking to what works when it comes to affording live events.
“I’m going to Montreal for My Chemical Romance. I might be going to the HOPE Volleyball SummerFest and I think I’m going to the Ottawa Jazz Festival, but those are as volunteering,” said Neve Gerow, a music industry arts student. “I noticed (concert) prices have definitely gone up. The ones I like to see are more expensive. Smaller acts are more affordable, but the bigger ones aren’t. The prices can be pretty high.”
Smaller live events held at local pubs and music venues can be a great outlet for students looking to dive into the music scene and save money, all while supporting local artists.
With bigger festivals like Escapade, Bluesfest and Osheaga coming up, students are weighing their options and contemplating affordability.
“I saw the lineup for Osheaga and every single day has at least three artists that I love,” Fakhrani said. “Then I saw that the tickets are almost $400 for each day. This is too unaffordable, I just can’t do it.”
Bands like The All-American Rejects have found a creative solution to regain control of their affordability and accessibility by performing at house parties on their latest tour across the United States. This eliminates predatory resellers and boosts fan engagement.
Here’s what Bear thinks about ticket scalping today.
“The upselling of tickets by scalpers is an issue even more so now. It’s just going to keep on making tickets rise in cost. In a weird way, (resellers) see this as a thing that people are going to buy anyway, so they keep charging more,” Bear said. “I’m not sure if that’s really on us for spending the money, or scalpers for taking advantage of it.”
