So, Didi asked for a post with lots of numbers. I live to serve, so I figured I would take on one of my favorite topics - Concert Ticket Pricing (and Clay's place in it). There are lots of numbers to be had here. Throughout this blog, I am going to be referencing the top 200 concerts of 2004. You can see the top 100 at http://www.pollstaronline.com/sf-ye2004-top100.asp. The 101-200 artists are only available to subscribers, so you'll just have to trust me :-)

Today, I decided to title my blog "Live music should be for everyone, not just the few with money." Anyone know where that quote came from? No? You must be a bad, bad fan, because you obviously haven't memorized every sentence of "Learning to Sing." That's right, that quote comes from Mr. Clay Aiken. A very nice vision, if a tad idealistic.

We hear all the time how overpriced the concert industry is (and Clay even told us so himself). So how expensive are tour tickets, really? And where does Clay fit into all of this?

In general, a lot of press goes to the $100+ seats being sold by the likes of Madonna, Prince, and Simon & Garfunkle. However, this isn't really the whole picture (the media likes to focus on worst case). If you look at the Pollstar Top 200 tours (or even the 100 tours that are publically available), a few trends begin to emerge. Note: I excluded comedy tours from the list which left me with 185 acts to look at.

71 of the tours (or 38% of the acts in the list) have ticket prices between $20-35. Note, because this is a top 200 list, this does not include many acts that are just starting out who may have ticket prices at $20 or less (not uncommone for people playing club dates), so I am probably greatly understating the number of acts who are priced under $35. The vast majority of contemporary pop/urban/rock acts fall into this range, including many people you are likely to hear on the radio (John Mayer, Nickelback, Kanye West, Good Charlotte, Ludacris, 3 Doors Down, Jessica Simpson, Velvet Revolver, Green Day, Evanescence and Avril Lavigne among others). Also, most CCM acts will fall into this range (Steven Curtis Chapman, MercyMe, Michael W. Smith).

51 (28%) have ticket prices that are between $35-50. Here you will see a lot of country artists (Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith) the lower end of the "oldies" acts (Kenny Loggins, The Moody Blues), the higher-end of pop acts (Clay Aiken, Hillary Duff, 50 Cent) and a lot of co-headlining tours (No Doubt/Blink 182, R Kelly/Jay-Z).

38 (20%) have ticket prices that are between $50-65. Here you will see the superstars of the pop realm (Josh Groban, Usher, Britney Spears), the top end Country artists (George Strait), significant older artists (k.d. lang, Melissa Etheridge, Metallica, Aerosmith) and touring specialists (Phish, Jimmy Buffet, Yanni).

17 (9%) have ticket prices that are between $66-80. This is mostly major career artists (Phil Collins, Van Halen, Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow, Eric Clapton).

Finally there are 8 artists with ticket prices over $80 (mostly in the $100+ range). Two are operatic tenors (Pavarotti & Andrea Bocelli). One is Celine Dion's Vegas show. The rest could probably be classified as legends (Bette Midler, Simon & Garfunkel, Eagles, Madonna and Elton John).

So, more than half the top 200 shows in 2004 had prices under $50 and only 8 were in that $100+ range that the media likes to talk about so much. Not exactly cheap entertainment by any means, but probably not too terribly off if you start comparing them to the prices of major sporting events either. Of course, this doesn't include the $10+ in fees that the promoter/venue/ticketmaster likes to add on before you actually get your ticket in hand. Some artists have started pushing back on the promoters/venues and not allowing them to pass on the fees directly to the consumer (this isn't something that Clay has chosen to do yet).

So, that begs the question...where DOES Clay fit into all of this?

OK, lets look at what Clay says in LTS: "That's why I'm committed to staying the least expensive tour in the country. Our priciest seat is $45 - Madonna's go for more than $300. Good for her, but I hope my tour tickets will always be cheap."

Well, hmmmmm.... Last year Clay's average tour price was $38.82. Since we know at least 71 of the top 185 tours were less than $35, he certainly didn't have the least expensive tour in the country.

And, wait, he must have written this during IT, since his priciest seat is now substantially more than $45 (some of the JBT seats top out at $70, and JNT was even more expensive), so never mind that.

And he compares his prices to Madonna's. Well, that is one way to go, I guess. But I have to admit it seems a wee bit silly to be comparing Clay and his 3.5 million albums sold across 2 years and 2 albums to Madonna's more than 63 Million sold across 16 albums (including 2 diamond sellers) over 20 years in the business. But hey, that might just be me.

And even $45 a ticket (and CERTAINLY his $50-70 top price for JBT) is not cheap by any measure.

OK, nevermind that. Forget what Clay said. Let's look at the numbers.

At first glance, maybe he is not too bad. He basically falls in the second group in the range, which certainly puts him high-end compared to most artists you would hear on CHR, but perhaps not too terribly bad considering that you find a lot of AC artists in that $35-50 range (this assumes that his pricing is being targeted to mostly adults).

But what is really interesting is to look at him compared to all the other pop/rock/country/urban artists who have come onto the scene in the last 5-6 years who show up in the top 200 - in other words his contemporaries (who are NOT Madonna). There are 25 of them (and Clay is actually 2 of the 25 - once alone and once with Kelly). Of those, only 7 artists have higher ticket prices than Clay - Beyonce, Britney, Josh Groban, Nickelback, Norah Jones, 50 Cent, and Hillary Duff. With the exception of the Dufflet, all of the artists above Clay are bonifide music stars as proved by the fact that they have each sold more than 7 Million albums. Hillary is the closest artist to Clay, and even she has sold 4 Million CDs (in addition to being a major Disney star). This puts him in some pretty rarified air, price-wise.

And who can you go see for less money than Clay? Well, let's see... There's Dido (5 Million albums sold), John Mayer (6 Mil), Linkin Park (14 Mil), Avril Lavigne (8 Mil), Evanescence (6 Mil), Blink-182 (9 Mil), Jessica Simpson (6 Mill), and Ludacris (8 Mil). All of these acts except Dido have higher attendance numbers than Clay (in John Mayer's case, double Clay in Linkin Park's case, triple Clay), so they are certainly all doing pretty well for themselves.

So, "what is the point?" you ask (heh - you mean I am supposed to have one?) First, based on the numbers, Clay's prices seem to be a bit higher than his sales would normally dictate, he CERTAINLY does not live on the cheap end of the scale, and he is only getting more expensive. Second, certain sections of LTS probably should be filed in the fiction section of the book store. And third (to paraphrase a good friend), I hope Clay is thanking Baby Jesus for AI every night before he goes to bed, because, all things considered, the power of AI to launch artists is pretty ding-dang amazing (but that is a subject for another blog).