Gigs and Festivals Are Bankrupting Me!

For all the furore over file-sharing and downloading, I think the music industry is missing one very important point: music is bankrupting us.
 
OK so they’re not literally bankrupting us (unless you’re Lady Gaga who has chosen to spend all her money on flame throwing bras and living dresses) but I am fed up of spending so much money on music. Being a music fan is becoming an increasingly expensive hobby.
 
In an ironic twist the best value thing in music is probably an album. Most albums are labours of love, with months if not years spent on them. The whole process of writing, recording and mixing is easily worth £10 in my opinion when so much has gone into it.
 
Festival tickets on the other hand are struggling to justify their spiralling costs. When else will you spend almost £200 for the pleasure of sleeping on a tree root while rain lashes your wafer-thin tent walls? Alright this isn’t even half the story but my problem is the spiralling prices of tickets. In 2005 I paid £125 for a Glastonbury ticket. This year I paid almost half as much again.
 
How can this be fair on the loyal fans who base their Summer months around the fields and music of Britain's festivals? Is Michael Eavis feeding his cows on wheatgrass now?!
 
I also noticed this week that the Camden Crawl are not only charging for normal tickets but also charging an additional ticket fee in order to see the few bigger name acts in the Roundhouse. Why not give them away like last year? By adding further ticket sales you alienate those who have already shelled out £60 for a weekend in Camden well before this announcement.
 
Even regular gigs are getting more and more expensive. I noticed the other day it’ll cost you well over £50 to see Kings of Leon in Hyde Park – that’s the price we pay for ‘Sex on Fire’. Tickets for Aerosmith at the O2 are £106 and Lady Gaga was criticised last week for doubling her ticket prices for her upcoming UK tour dates.
 
Musicians need to make a living and deserve reward for success but it’d be nice to give music fans a fair deal rather than taking advantage. Younger fans are going to get forced out unless their parents are earning well and professionals are now having to pick and choose what they see. In my opinion this stifles the industry and fans. This is before we even mention ticket touts, £4 pints and those £20 band t-shirts.
 
I may sound old-fashioned but it wasn’t always like this and it's showing no sign of stopping. I just hope corporate greed doesn’t alienate fans altogether.
 
What do you think? Is music bankrupting you too?