So, I found out Saturday that Bob Dylan is coming to Dayton in July. The Bob Dylan. The Bob Dylan who is so universally known that I don't even have to give you a link to his web page. He's going to be at Fifth Third Field on July 10, but ticket sales for this event started May 2 at 10 a.m. -- just a few hours before I found out about this life changing event. I LOVE Dylan--sorry for the caps, even more than I do chocolate covered pretzels. Ironically, this is why something in my stomach sank like an anchor the moment I found out about him coming to town, and it wasn't the bag of pretzels I had just eaten.
The tickets, I found out, were $67.50, which wasn't bad at all compared to other musicians' concert ticket prices, and considering the fact that this is Bob Dylan. However, I've recently come across some events in my life that has sucked my bank account dry. Not completely dry--I still have a few hundred dollars left, but the kind of dry you feel in the back of your throat when you're thirsty, but not thirsty enough to get up and get something to drink. So I looked at my online checkings account, and saw that if I dump the electric and water bill on my sisters, and if by some chance our landlord would forget that he rents to us--as most landlords so often do, then I would still have enough money left over to buy a ticket. Then, I remembered that it was my turn to buy groceries. Maybe we could go a week living off of oatmeal and saltines, I thought. Who am I kidding? If I didn't get the tickets right away I'd be stuck with lawn seats, then I wouldn't be close enough to Dylan to ask him to marry me.
Before I decided to give into drawing from my savings account, I started to do some research about the average price of concert tickets so that I could warn others about what to expect when the love of their life comes to their hometown and they realized that they're too broke to go see him/her.
StubHub, a leading ticket marketplace, released their 2008 concert ticket annual report, and it shows that the average price for a concert ticket was $159, which was up from $156 in 2007. The highest average tour ticket price of 2008 belonged to Madonna (at $306 per show), according to StubHub.com. I'm so glad I was becoming a fan of Fisher Price in the '80s instead of her. The lowest average price belonged to Panic at the Disco (at $66 per ticket). Too bad I'm not into punk/emo groups consisting of guys who wear more makeup than I do. Inspired by the thought of broke Madonna fans crying, I felt much better and decided that there had to be something I could do to get those Dylan ticket.
I left the computer to go beg and plead with my sister to cover a small portion of my rent in order for me to be able to buy the ticket. When I found her, she reminded me--in a very annoying tone of voice, that it was my turn to buy groceries. Then she told me that she had seen her phone bill, and that she would need me to cover a portion of her rent. I wasn't ticked. I was devastated. I now had to face the reality that by the time I get my Dylan tickets, my seats will be closer to my front porch than they are to Dylan.
StubHub 2008 Concert Ticket Annual Report
http://www.stubhub.com/sites/corpsite/?gsec=news&gact=press&article_id=9158
The tickets, I found out, were $67.50, which wasn't bad at all compared to other musicians' concert ticket prices, and considering the fact that this is Bob Dylan. However, I've recently come across some events in my life that has sucked my bank account dry. Not completely dry--I still have a few hundred dollars left, but the kind of dry you feel in the back of your throat when you're thirsty, but not thirsty enough to get up and get something to drink. So I looked at my online checkings account, and saw that if I dump the electric and water bill on my sisters, and if by some chance our landlord would forget that he rents to us--as most landlords so often do, then I would still have enough money left over to buy a ticket. Then, I remembered that it was my turn to buy groceries. Maybe we could go a week living off of oatmeal and saltines, I thought. Who am I kidding? If I didn't get the tickets right away I'd be stuck with lawn seats, then I wouldn't be close enough to Dylan to ask him to marry me.
Before I decided to give into drawing from my savings account, I started to do some research about the average price of concert tickets so that I could warn others about what to expect when the love of their life comes to their hometown and they realized that they're too broke to go see him/her.
StubHub, a leading ticket marketplace, released their 2008 concert ticket annual report, and it shows that the average price for a concert ticket was $159, which was up from $156 in 2007. The highest average tour ticket price of 2008 belonged to Madonna (at $306 per show), according to StubHub.com. I'm so glad I was becoming a fan of Fisher Price in the '80s instead of her. The lowest average price belonged to Panic at the Disco (at $66 per ticket). Too bad I'm not into punk/emo groups consisting of guys who wear more makeup than I do. Inspired by the thought of broke Madonna fans crying, I felt much better and decided that there had to be something I could do to get those Dylan ticket.
I left the computer to go beg and plead with my sister to cover a small portion of my rent in order for me to be able to buy the ticket. When I found her, she reminded me--in a very annoying tone of voice, that it was my turn to buy groceries. Then she told me that she had seen her phone bill, and that she would need me to cover a portion of her rent. I wasn't ticked. I was devastated. I now had to face the reality that by the time I get my Dylan tickets, my seats will be closer to my front porch than they are to Dylan.
StubHub 2008 Concert Ticket Annual Report
http://www.stubhub.com/sites/corpsite/?gsec=news&gact=press&article_id=9158
Photo from Flickr.com by Peter Honeyman
http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/artsandentertainment/entries/2009/04/24/bob_dylan_willie_nelson_john_m.html
Updated with additional and correctional information on May 5, 2009
