It’s very exciting for fans when a musician announces a concert in their city, but the excitement quickly fades when ticket prices can break the bank.

Last month, Edmontonian Mike Tighe tried to buy tickets from Zach Bryan for his son’s birthday, but discovered third-party agencies were scamming fans to resell the tickets.

“(We) go to Ticketmaster, (and it’s) pretty much complete, other than the nosebleeds… Then you go to the next logical thing, StubHub. We see ‘Resale’ – well, resale is ridiculous,” Tighe said.

“The cheapest nosebleed (seats) were $800 to $900. For the lower (seats), it cost almost up to two thousand dollars per ticket for the three of us.”

Tighe told CTV News Edmonton on Friday that he did the math to take the family out of the country to see Zach Bryan.

He said it was cheaper to book a five-day trip to Phoenix, Arizona, including flights, hotels and tickets to an NBA game, than to go to a concert in Edmonton.

“I think the government needs to intervene in some way,” he said. “There is this monopoly of artists.

“I get it, it’s a business and they need to make money. But it goes from the artist to Live Nation, which basically owns all the music venues. Then it goes to Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation.

“So there’s a whole environment there where they’re just accumulating prices.”

A music industry expert said ticket prices are based on the ever-changing state of how we consume music and artists’ loss of album sales.

“Music streaming services like Spotify and YouTube, even though they give global access to all the music at your fingertips, they pay a very, very low royalty rate compared to, say, a vinyl record or a CD at the time,” declared Éric Alper.

“Artists have realized this… and see tickets to their show costing $5,000 or $10,000… I think a lot of artists are standing up and saying, ‘We’re going to start charging value per market and not leaving. “any money on the table,” he added.

Alper said other factors driving up ticket sales are the Canadian dollar versus the U.S. dollar, longer travel days for teams and artists when touring Canada, and taxes on concert equipment and merchandise when traveling to Canada.

CTV News Edmonton contacted the provincial government to find out if Alberta has considered regulations regarding a ticket sales cap on resold tickets.

“The Alberta government is not currently considering any new regulations regarding ticket sales, including capping resale prices,” Brandon Aboultaif, the Alberta government press secretary, said in an email. .

Aboultaif said in the same email that Albertans are protected by the Consumer Protection Act when purchasing concert tickets.

These guards include:

• Banning the use of robots, so that buyers do not have to compete with computer software when putting tickets on sale;
• Refunds from secondary sellers, so that buyers can obtain compensation if, in certain circumstances, the ticket does not allow them to access the event; And
• A “right to sue” for ticket sellers and buyers to protect their interests against potential losses resulting from the use of bots.

Tighe said he made the right choice in going to Phoenix.

“It still cost me a lot of money to go, but it’s a vacation instead of spending a night in Edmonton.”