h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, two actually.

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0600404DD8B4D935?artistid=851852&majorcatid=10002&minorcatid=51

I'm not telling someone that I'm searching more-than-daily to see if tickets for Leonard Cohen @ Edinburgh Castle have come on sale yet.

He's playing three nights at the Paramount Theatre in June and the tickets go on sale this morning in... about 20 minutes But they range from $40 to $72.50, which I'm not sure I can afford It bloody well irritates me that the actual ticket price is $7.50 less, and then they whack on a service charge, and then there's another $3.00 handling fee per order on top of that!!!

Last time I saw Eddie Izzard was at the Hackney Empire, at least 15 years ago. He was one of several people on the bill including Alan Davies and Chris Evans (who hit eggs into the audience with a golf club ), and I probably didn't pay any more than a tenner for the whole lot. At the current exchange rates those dollar prices equate to £80 to £145. It was a GLR Help a London Child benefit which was later broadcast on GLR (edited down to an hour), but I lost my tape of it

Our seats were $50 apiece, plus service charges. It's more than I'd like to pay for a show, but should be worth it if rumor holds true. My sister and brother-in-law went to see him in Chicago for Sexie and she hasn't stopped talking about it since.

Ticket prices across the board have just gotten out of hand over the years. I remember seeing Aerosmith and Bon Jovi for $14 or $15 apiece, now you can't see anyone for less than $45. I'm supposed to take broe jr to see Dave Matthews for his birthday, and published prices for that are $65-75. Plus service charges.

I've pretty much given up any hope of ever seeing Tom Waits, partly because of the demand whenever the tickets go on sale but mostly because of the damn cost. $80+. Eddie Izzard would be well worth the asking price though. I had a look through the Paramount calendar - Joe Jackson's playing soon too I'm just thinking that I probably could have seen him somewhere like the Nashville or the Hope and Anchor in 1980 for a quid, and a few years later at somewhere like the Rainbow or the Dominion, Tottenham Court Road for a fiver, and now he's playing the Paramount for $45.

I won't tell you what I paid 10 years ago to see U2. In Portland, Oregon, no less so it didn't even include airline tickets, meals, rental car... just thinking about it.

If I was going to see TW it would probably also include airfare and hotel accoms. I believe that he refuses to play anywhere in Texas these days after his friend was badly beaten by a couple of bouncers at La Zona Rosa the day after his Paramount show at SXSW in 1999. So far he's kept to his word Ironic really since his father was originally from Texas. The last time BV saw Tom Waits she had to go to Seattle and I think the whole deal cost her in the region of $600.

Gosho, you could just wait until he goes somewhere you have friends, save on the hotel, anyway. If he turns up in St Louis I can offer you my couch

I think I paid around $50 for two U2 tickets for mom's 50th in the early 90s, and that was at a stadium, not an arena. It was the most I'd ever paid for a ticket to see anyone, and I wasn't even going to the show.

A few years back we went to Chicago to see Graham Norton, that was a couple hundred with gas and hotel on top of the tickets. It was a good show, though. I hadn't ever seen him do stand-up before, just his show.

How was Alan Davies, Gosho? I've never seen him do stand-up, either.

He was pretty good actually. Better than his Jonathan Creek stuff I reckon.