Guitarist Kerry King, known for his role in Slayer, recently addressed rising concert ticket prices and the challenges musicians face organizing tours in a post-pandemic world. During an interview with Heavy ConsequenceKing shared his views on the economic impact of COVID-19 on the music industry.
Soaring costs after the pandemic
King explained that the pandemic had led to a widespread increase in costs in the live music sector, which directly influenced ticket prices: “When the pandemic arrived, everything exploded. Buses have increased [en prix]and everything remained expensive when we started touring again. You can curse promoters and venues all you want, but it costs money to tour, unfortunately, and it’s not as cheap as it was five years ago.”
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Wait for the right time to come back
The musician also revealed that he deliberately waited for the fallout from the pandemic to stabilize before hitting the road again with his solo project: “I didn’t want to come back too soon, because I wanted all the COVID mess to go away. I wanted the promoters and the venues to get through this…I wanted this whole thing to pass before we came back. Now I can’t wait.”
The differences between Slayer and his solo project
King highlighted the differences between his experiences touring with Slayer and those with his solo project: “It’s funny, because with Slayer, we were a bit pampered. We had a hotel almost every night. But with my current group, we only have a hotel room on days off.”
A difficult context for tours
King’s comments are part of a broader discussion about the music industry’s struggles. Many artists, like Tim “Ripper” Owens of KK’s Priest or M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold, have also spoken about tour cancellations due to insufficient ticket sales to cover costs. Mastodon’s Bill Kelliher even called the damage inflicted on the industry “hard to repair.”
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