Local venue fights to keep concerts affordable in the age of soaring ticket prices

S1: It's KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Maureen Kavanagh. Earlier in the hour , we heard about the problems that Ticketmaster is causing for would be concert goers. But as our next guest explains , it's not so easy for those trying to put on a show either. For more than 30 years. Tim Mayes has been one of San Diego's major indie rock impresarios , bringing in acts from near and far to the iconic venue he co-founded , the Casbah. The Downtown Concert Hall has a reputation as one of the city's more affordable venues. But putting on a show in the age of soaring ticket prices is getting harder. He joins us now with more on some of the major changes that have affected San Diego's music scene. And Tim , hello. Welcome. Hi.

S2: Hi. Hi , Maureen. How are you doing ? Great.

S1: Thank you for being here. You know , as someone who's been so steeped in the world of punk rock , Tim , you know this better than anybody. Shows used to be cheap.

S2: When I first started , I got up to about $10 in about 1983 , 84. And my nickname back then was $10. Tim Because people were really bummed out that I was charging ten bucks and I'd always , you know , to to respond to that. Any criticism might as well just go put on a show yourself. There's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that you don't the average person doesn't isn't aware of. Flash forward 30 , 40 years and , you know , just like during the last couple of years where gas prices shot up and food prices went up and buying a car went way up and buying buying anything. So those are all reflected in ticket prices prior to the pandemic. A small new touring band would go out on the road and their booking agents would would ask for ticket prices , you know , ten , 12 , maybe $15 after the pandemic. And once , you know , things have gotten back into full swing , which is how it is pretty much now starting starting for a new band is 15 , $18 tickets. So it's jumped , you know , probably , what , 25 , 30% in the last couple of years just on the base level of what bands need to do. And that's that's because it costs a lot of money to be on the road. You know , gasoline , food , lodging. Those three things alone just have probably doubled in the last 5 to 10 years for any touring band. So that's that's where the increases are. And , you know , people seem to be able to afford the tickets. You know , we are at the Casbah on on the lower end. I mean , you know , I paid $200 for tickets to Roxy Music a few months ago. And , you know , that was I would have never thought I'd pay that much for anything. But that was a low end of a major show like that , you know ? So so , yeah , we're still relatively cheap. Yeah. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. Casbah is one of the I wouldn't call it relatively cheap , but it's one of the more affordable venues in town.

S2: My first question to the booking agent is what ? What ticket price do you want to go with ? And generally we structure the deal based on whatever ticket price they think is is applicable. You know , sometimes I'll say , well , that seems a little bit high based on what what the band has done in the past or , or what current ticket prices levels are. But , but pretty much that's what dictates it. So , you know , we try and structure it's not a it's it's not an exact science. You know , you do your research , look at various metrics on how the band does on social media and on , you know , things like Spotify and Pandora and stuff like that. And you try to put together an educated guess based on what you've , you know , what you've learned over the last 30 , 40 years and what the market will bear. And it's like gambling , You know , people always , you know , go to Las Vegas and people like , well , what do you play there ? I said , I don't gamble. I gamble every day putting shows on. That's my gambling. And , you know , luckily most of the time we come out on top of that. But , you know , it's not a sure thing ever.

S1: You mentioned the pandemic and inflation and so forth , but I would imagine one of the effects of the pandemic was that it really increased people's desire to finally see live music again.

S2: And once we set a ticket price and the show goes on sale , we don't change it. I mean , there will be an advanced ticket price. Then there will be a day of show ticket price. You know , the price always goes up. Usually on the day of the show. I'm starting to see a model now where some places are charging an advance ticket price and then a week of the show ticket price and then a day show. So three tiers instead of two , which , you know , squeezes a little bit of extra revenue in that last week we haven't really done we've done a couple of those. But but not not really the pandemic. You know , I mean , when we reopened in July of 2021 , finally , you know , people were buying tickets like crazy. But we had a lot of no shows because people were still leery of being out in large groups. So we'd have shows back in fall of 2021 where , you know , we sell 200 tickets and we'd only have 150 people , 140 people show up , which was fine for the bands. They still got they got the same money they would have gotten , you know , whether the people showed up or not because they already bought the tickets. But , you know , it impacts the the bar revenue a bit when you have , you know , you could have sold another 50 tickets at the door , but it created a demand and now demand is back to where it was. You know , people are. People. I think people took live music for granted prior to the pandemic. You know , like there's so many venues in San Diego and so many shows and so many bands. They were like , Oh , I can go out this night or I can go out that night or I can go see something else. But once the pandemic , you know , lasted as long as it did , I think people people realize it's not to be taken for granted. And it's a it's a joyous thing to go see a band play , whether it's a small place like the Casbah or a big place like the Open Air Theater or Soma or what have you.

S1: Yeah , yeah , I was going to ask you that because aside from the costs , you must have seen changes in this industry over the past 30 , 40 years you've been involved.

S2: And over the years , it's gradually gotten to , you know , more culturally aware , I guess , you know , back then it was a very , very conservative beach town , you know , military town. And now it's it's , you know , San Diego , the food and the the craft cocktail and the brewery thing and live music and art are all , you know , I'd say on a level of most major cities in the US , you know , so I think the the appreciation of live music has increased commensurate with all those , those other factors and those other realms. And , you know , bands still skip San Diego when they're on a tight schedule. But more and more you see bands. I mean , any given night , there's 5 or 6 decent shows you could pick to go to. And that wasn't always the case for so many years.

S1: Right now. The Coachella Music Festival is in between weekends.

S2: They called them , you know , where bands had to fill that week with something because , you know , they couldn't afford to just sit around in Los Angeles for two for a week. But more and more , we don't get many of those anymore. I'm not sure why. I think Goldenvoice kind of plays it a little more close to the vest as far as whatever shows they are going to allow the bands to do. They want to put them on themselves to maximize their revenue , which , you know , I understand that completely , but it used to be a great thing. We would we would have multiple shows at the Casbah , multiple shows at the belly out , multiple shows at the observatory during that week. And I think we've only got a handful maybe between between Casbah and Belly up. There's , there's only a handful. I know a couple of bands are playing at Humphreys during the week and um , maybe the probably not the observatory because that's a live nation venue. Goldenvoice and Live Nation are competitors in a pretty big way. So so yeah , so we don't get as many as we used to. It's kind of a bummer , but you know , it is what it is now. Casbah.

S1: Casbah. No , I know often works though with other venues in the region to put on shows and attract talent to San Diego.

S2: It's a it's a mutual admiration society , if you will. Casper's a part owner at Soda Bar , so we do a lot of shows there together. So to bar shows at Casbah two , we've been working closely with the Belly Up and Music Box and Observatory for years and years and years , and we have a really great respectful relationship with those venues as well as , you know , House of Blues. So there's the new venue that opened up in Del Mar called The Sound , which the belly up is running. And we're , you know , we're going to have a couple shows up there with them. So we've got a really great thing. We're you know , the good thing with Casbah is at that small level where we're at , we oftentimes get bands in when they're just coming up. So we've taken great pains to build relationships with the bands , their managers and their booking agents so that when they do get bigger and they outgrow playing the Casbah , we're able to maintain that relationship and that history and and take them into larger venues where we , you know , we co promote with those venues on , on a regular basis. I mean , any given month we'll have , you know , five , ten , 15 shows at other venues.

S1: Not so much at the Casbah because as we mentioned , that you've been really working hard to keep your concerts affordable. But it seems that over the landscape , the live music is becoming more of a luxury. Instead of being part of a regular night out.

S2: I mean , you can't go afford to go see a couple shows a week at a certain level , you know , and it's kind of like baseball where you used to be able to go to a baseball game for 5 or $7 and sit out in the bleachers or out in the grass. And you know , that that's gone ridiculously high , too. And it does lock out a bunch of people who are music fans , music fan music , fandom cuts across all all economic levels. So so it makes it hard to see a major show. I mean , if you want to go see something like like The Cure and I know The Cure had lower priced tickets for their tour , but still to get a decent seat or and you had the service charges in and all that you know you're looking at a pretty major price and so you got to kind of scrimp and save to to make that work.

S1: You know , this is a silly question , but I want to ask you anyway , because I want to hear your answer. Why is it why is it important to see bands live in the first place ? There are so many other options. People have now.

S2: You know , there's there's no experience like that , you know , seeing a movie or listening to a record or listening to music in your car. All those things are wonderful. But it just nothing , nothing matches being in a live venue , especially someplace like the Casbah where basically you're like a foot away from the performer , you know , But even up to the level of going to a larger show , I mean , it's it's just magical. And , you know , sometimes , you know , you go see a show and you hear a song that you you've cherished for years and you get goosebumps or you get tears and you know , or you get something that we're fist pumping and just going nuts and people love , you know , there's no way to duplicate that experience. Live music. It's just like kind of like going to a movie theater instead of watching a movie on your TV. There's a whole different realm of it that it's just , you know , it's hard to describe. But people who do those things. No.

S1:

S2: And , you know , the nuts and bolts of it now have gotten a little more a lot more intricate over the years where , you know , there's a lot of more analytical behavior to and marketing and stuff like that that when started out as kind of they just left you to to your own devices to put a show up and put it on sale. And now it's much more controlled. And , you know , like I said , more analytical. But at the end of the day , there's nothing like going to see a show that I booked , whether it's , you know , the music box or the belly up or the Casbah , and just being there with friends and bands , bands who you've become friends with over the years , you know , I've met pretty much everybody I know in my my social circle at this point in my life is people I've met either as fans of music or musicians or , you know , coworkers and or people who've worked for me over the years. So so it's been a you know , I mean , I'm still a music fan and I still enjoy it. That's what's kept me going.

S1: Yeah , well , thank you for that. Thank you , San Diego. Thanks you for that , Tim. I've been speaking with Kasbah co-founder Tim Mayes. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Great.

S2: Great. Thanks for having me.