remember seeing some of the world's most famous rock stars during the late 1960's and early 70's at NYC's small venue Filmore East at aa price a college pauper could afford (10 or 12 bucks, I think).

The internet inflation calculator tells me that 12 bucks in 1970 is equivalent to $100 today.

I would also note that today’s “big” shows are a far cry from what was offered in 1970, which was generally a group of 3 or 5 musicians standing on a stage playing songs, all of whose equipment could comfortably fit in a Ryder truck. Nowadays you can’t even get in the game unless you have multimedia television screens behind you, fireworks at the appropriate moments, and it takes a dozen fully loaded semis with scenery and set designs to go from city to city.

(Not to mention that several middlemen have inserted themselves into the ticket buying process; when I wanted a ticket I went to the box office and bought a piece of paper from the lady behind the cashier window. Nowadays it’s an app, controlled by some third party entity (for a fee) with laser scanners and bar codes at the door, and a resale market controlled by some *other* third party (for a fee) because computer bots have already filched all the available seats before the lady behind the window even opens for business.)

Yeah, it’s a different world. On the other hand, I didn’t have to stand behind 1,000 people holding up their phones and blocking the view for everyone behind them, so there’s that.