The death of the casual concert-goer.

Taylor Swift's Eras Tour broke the internet (literally), the Oasis reunion was a dynamic pricing nightmare in the UK, and don't even get me started on trying to see Beyoncé without selling a kidney.

Welcome to the new era of concert-going, where you now need to be wealthy, an extremely dedicated, die-hard fan, or both in order to see your favourite artists perform live.

Remember when seeing your favourite band was something you could afford? When you could decide on a whim to catch a gig without knowing every single detail about the artist performing? Those days are officially dead and buried.

And frankly, it's killing the soul of live music.

Watch the trailer for The Eras Tour concert film. Article continues after video.

I recently purchased tickets to see Lady Gaga in Sydney and, while I understand she hasn't been to Australia in a decade — which certainly added to the onslaught of fans that were dying to see her in concert, myself included — the whole experience had me wondering when and why exactly it became so hard to go to a live concert. 

Getting tickets now requires the dedication of a full-time job. You need multiple fan club memberships, credit card presales, promoter presales — essentially a PhD in ticket purchasing. Fans are setting up multiple devices on different internet connections. It's insanity. 

The tips circulating online are genuinely absurd: use mobile connection on your phone, be the only user on your home WiFi, don't use multiple browsers. And after all that — once you finally manage to get onto the ticketing site after several hours of waiting and panicking — you're charged an exorbitant amount of money for very, very average seats. 

Image: Getty

People are taking time out of their work days to wait in a digital queue, spending their hard-earned money, only to be given the opportunity to purchase seats right at the back of the stadium — if they're lucky enough to make it through the queue, that is.

And here's where it gets truly insidious. Dynamic pricing — the same system Uber uses during peak times — is becoming the norm for concerts. Ticket prices change in real-time based on demand, meaning loyal fans often get priced out in favour of whoever's willing to pay more at that exact moment.

And it gets even more brutal for Australian fans: we're not just fighting inflated prices — we're fighting geography itself.

When Taylor Swift, one of the biggest artists in the world, announced her Australian dates, she scheduled just seven shows across the entire continent. Seven.

For a country where fans would need to travel thousands of kilometres to attend, Oasis managed a whopping five shows, while Kendrick Lamar's upcoming tour will have just four Australian dates.

When you've got millions of fans competing for a handful of tickets, and often just in Sydney and Melbourne, demand becomes absolutely insane.

This geographic reality adds another devastating layer to the cost crisis. You can't casually attend a concert if they're not even coming to your state. Fans from Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart and regional areas aren't just paying for tickets — they're paying for flights, accommodation, time off work, and often childcare.

The spontaneous "let's go see that band tonight" culture is dead. Live music has transformed from a communal experience into a luxury good. A status symbol, if you may.

Lady Gaga's recent free concert on Copacabana Beach — which drew 2.1 million people and broke Madonna's previous record — proved something crucial: people aren't tired of concerts. They're tired of overpriced, overcomplicated systems that make them feel excluded.

We've created a system where only die-hard fans with significant disposable income can participate. Casual fans — the ones who might discover new music at a show, who add to the electric atmosphere of a live gig — as well as long-term fans who can't afford the crazy price of tickets, are being systematically priced out of the concert-going experience.

Image: Getty

When concerts become accessible only to the wealthy, we lose the diversity that makes live music magical.

The solution isn't complicated: concerts should cost what they cost. Set your profit margin, price good seats and bad seats accordingly, and stop treating fans like they're playing the stock market.

It's time to remember that music is supposed to bring people together, not divide them by their bank account balance. 

The death of casual concert-going isn't just bad for fans — it's bad for music itself.

Feature Image: Getty.