Needles & Grooves

For Austin shows, I paid around $90 a ticket for the Reunions tour in 8/21, and like $105 a ticket for his show here in May. That’s through Ticketmaster, and includes all their fees. Unfortunately, that’s pretty average these days for shows at ACL Live. Great venue though, so at least there’s that. Wish they hadn’t gotten into bed with Ticketmaster though.

@Aron I think Axs is worse if that is possible and that is who runs the Ryman's ticketing.

That’s the other thing, I think those Isbell were the last Ticketmaster tickets I have or plan on buying. The two concerts I am going to this month, Tix were bought from the venue.

Seeing Sparks tonight at the same venue, and just for reference, I paid $90 for that ticket. I don’t think they have an opener though. Isbell does tend to have really good opening acts for his shows. Acts I either want to see, or walk away a fan of. So there is a little added value there.

@Twentytwo I’m doing a family trip to Memphis & Nashville in mid September. Was hoping to catch a good show at the Ryman, but instead, I think Macklemore is booked for one of the nights we are there. Isbell announced his October run afterwards, and, yeah, couldn’t have afforded those even if scheduling had worked out.

A lot of the Isbell Ryman tickets in the great places like first two rows of the balcony were AXS premium tickets. Almost $600 for two tickets on first row of balcony.

Yeah when your show tickets are more than your flight tickets, it becomes harder to justify.

Here is another gripe with Jason, if he is going to charge that kind of money for tickets. He needs to play more than 18-19 songs a night. His catalog is way too big to only be playing that many songs. The current tour he is rarely playing anything from Here We Rest or any of his DBT songs. Saw Charley Crockett last year and he played 29 songs. BJ Barham from American Aquarium usually plays around 25 a night.

I paid about $70 for a GA outdoor fairgtounf and about $130 for row 3 in a theater neither seemed too crazy. But he is definitely at a place where he can sell out the large venues but wants to tour and perform for an album like he's much smaller.

I don't know what the solution is but I think you're on to something with more songs. But I felt like he played a lot of songs but "all the hits" were missing. The double edge sword of success.

Isbell is on record for saying he has told his management that he would rather book a mid size venue multiple nights than play a single night at a really big venue. I’m cool with that. Also, there are curfew type restrictions at venues that would prevent marathon type shows with extended setlists. Isbell’s songs tend to be longer than Crockett’s too. More soloing/jams.

The answer to a curfew is start the show earlier. The show I am going to next weeke is your typical 8 pm show. The show after that is 6 pm.

@Aron while I believe him. This tour says otherwise

I would say most headliners at non festival gigs play around 90 minutes. That’s still a good amount for me. You still have your Springsteen and Cure type artists that play for 3 hours, but that’s becoming more and more rare. As I said earlier, I didn’t feel short changed at all from 21 Isbell songs in 90 minutes for $105 at a great venue. He made great use of that time with us.

@bdm105 How so? He played 3 nights at ACL Live, and he’s doing the multi night run at the Ryman. There are probably other examples… those are just two I know off the top of my head. Not sure he has much say in actual ticket prices.

@Aron I can only speak for his west/pnw leg but it was mostly outdoor venues with an occasional theater one night only. I think the Ryman is it's own thing at this point. 3 nights at ACL is awesome though.

He’s done the multi-night run thing in Austin since the Nasville Sound era at least. But, he has also done some one offs in between like Willie’s picnic or things like that, which are at much larger venues.

This is the way, @Twentytwo.

Yeah very area specific I imagine. But at least when I looked put here it was all outdoor amphitheaters. Hearing elephant outside while it's still sunny was a little strange.

@Aron I think Isbell mas more say in tickets prices that you'd think, especially his management. I guess I can't argue with him getting it while the getting is good. As he said recently I can afford anything at Target but I'm not well known enough to to be bothered in there.