Many categories make up a household budget. Generally housing is largest, followed by food and transportation. Entertainment is a far lesser discretionary item. We've noted on this site in the past the crazy inflation in land value we have seen over the past 20, or even 50+ years.
The government likes to under-report inflation, this way its benefit programs that are linked to the consumer price increase don't go up as much as they should, and its debt total is eaten away by inflation without it having to be actually repaid.
So we have a society with vastly under reported inflation and artificially suppressed interest rates such that individuals borrow more than they should (in order to compete for products and services from other people who are also borrowing more than they would if rates were higher).
At some point these distortions in the economy have to show up. Home values is the big one the gets the most media attention, but concert tickets get some coverage as well, due to the sticker shock and fees.
1998, ticket price was $22.50, $5.25 service charge was a whopping 23% of ticket value...ticketmaster back then was already a public enemy
2017, Same band, ticket price is now 550% of twenty years earlier. Service fee is 'only' %14 of ticket face value. However, the gross service fee represents almost %100 of the actual ticket price from 20 years prior.
Forecasting trends is impossible with these exponential type price increases, because these figures don't seem sustainable. In another 20 years, will the same show cost $687? This is the problem with compound numbers, they can get too large to be manageable. It seem more likely to me the cost of the ticket price in 20 years would be $68.70, because the government would have to issue a 10:1 reverse split on money (if they don't, a $5 bill would have the value of a 50 cent coin).
The biggest winner in this inflation race may be the government that collects %5 gst on the total cost of $143, so it takes in $7 on every ticket (x 10,000), that is a lot of money. The other winner is the band, they make more money now in a single show than they would have on an entire 50 stop tour in 1995. With crazy ticket prices like these maybe the $800k Altadore lot isn't so bad...