Arctic Monkeys’ fans aren’t happy about the price of tickets for their upcoming UK tour

Do they do major credit cards?

A number of Arctic Monkeys fans have taken to social media to complain about the price of tickets to the band’s upcoming UK and Ireland tour.

In support of their long-awaited sixth album ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino‘, the Sheffield four-piece this week announced a string of arena dates on home turf, kicking off in September.

Many have noted that outlets such as Ticketmaster and SeeTickets have tickets priced between around £45 and £80. However, NME has been informed that across the whole tour, the cheapest seats are £39.50 with the best seats priced at £69.50. The ticket price of their last UK show in 2014 was £55 – which is roughly the average cost for the upcoming dates.

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NME polled its Twitter followers, and at the time of publishing found that around 50% would be willing to pay £30-£50 for the experience of seeing Arctic Monkeys live:

Many fans feel like the upper echelon of prices are too expensive – with some pointing out that tickets to the previous tour for ‘AM’ in 2013 were around the £30-£50 range.

https://twitter.com/lydiahamer/status/983652423628656640

https://twitter.com/lou_lou_belle34/status/983396908403249153

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Arctic Monkeys, 2018

Others however, were a little more understanding of the cost and were just excited for the band to hit the road:

https://twitter.com/kurthallam97/status/983283034131697664

NME has contacted an Arctic Monkeys’ representative for a response. Fans are also reminded that the surname of the person who made the purchase will be printed on the ticket, and they will need to be present. This makes life difficult for touts, but means that people will not be able to buy tickets for others without them in attendance.

Arctic Monkeys ticket rules
Arctic Monkeys ticket rules

It must of course be noted that ticket prices across the board have been on the rise in recent years – and have even doubled since the ’90s.

A study conducted by BBC 5 live’s Wake Up to Money earlier this year looked at data from the National Arenas Association, which monitors prices across 21 major UK music venues.  It found that, taking inflation into account, prices have risen by 27 percent. In 1999, the average arena gig ticket cost £22.58 (or £37.20 in today’s prices), compared to £45.49 in 2016 (£47.14 today).

John Corr of Sound Moves commented on the findings: “People complain about the cost of the tickets… but when they understand the scale of what goes on in the background they begin to get an understanding of why we’ve got to the cost we have.”

“People’s expectations keep rising – do they want a musical performance or do they want a show? With Beyonce, when the Formation tour was announced, demand was huge and they extended it in the US.

“What had been a predominantly ocean [freight] solution to get it to the start of the European tour in Sunderland needed to have increased air freight… We flew five 747s, which was the core show, into Prestwick and two 747s of stage components into Doncaster.”

Arctic Monkeys

Arctic Monkeys release new album ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino’ on May 11.

Tour dates and tickets

Full dates are below, and you can buy tickets here from 9am on Friday, April 13.

  • September 6/7 2018 – Manchester Arena
  • September 9/10 – The O2 Arena, London
  • September 15 – Birmingham Arena
  • September 18/19 – FlyDSA Arena, Sheffield
  • September 24 – 3Arena, Dublin
  • September 27 – Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle

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