...because the artist asks them to. Check out lefsetzletter.com sometime, the guy's an ex-industry lawyer with some bombastic opinions and astute observations a

...because the artist asks them to. Check out lefsetzletter.com sometime, the guy's an ex-industry lawyer with some bombastic opinions and astute observations about what's been going on in the music industry, and he gets emails from all walks of it. Those fees that get slapped on to your ticket? Some of them are from the venue, some of them are from Ticketmaster, but some of that's been mandated by the artist being greedy. And now it's anecdote time! Back in the late 90s in DC the radio station 99.1 WHFS put on a festival called the HFStival - 20 bands for 20 bucks. The headliners were national acts, as were most of the bands on the lineup, and there were a few local bands who'd round things out earlier in the day. Now you can't even get lawn seats at a pavilion for $20, and that's not counting parking, convenience charges, charging you money to print the ticket at home rather than having it mailed to you at no charge (WTF), the $45 tshirt (because the venue takes $20 per shirt sold), the overpriced drinks, etc. etc. You want to see live music? Get involved in your local scene. Plenty of people out there playing small (non-livenation) venues for $5-$15, playing their hearts out.