Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson Goes on Rant About Ticket Prices — and Thinks the Front Row Should Be Affordable

Bruce Dickinson, the frontman for heavy metal band Iron Maiden, has shared his two cents on the ever-increasing prices for concert tickets.

Speaking to Mexico’s ATMósferas Magazine last week, the musician opened up about the negative impact of gauged ticket prices and cited an expensive example.

“If you wanna go and see the U2 show, I think it was $1,200 dollars per seat in the Sphere,” Dickinson, 65, told the outlet.

He added, "I’ve got no interest in paying $1,200 dollars to go and see U2 in the Sphere — none. A hundred bucks, maybe. But for me, what’s important is to try and keep, on the one hand, the right type of tickets at the right price.”

The "Fear of the Dark" singer suggested that the price of tickets near the front of the stage should be the most reasonably priced.

"The people who are gonna go there to the front of the stage are gonna be people who are real fans, people who are kids, people who can’t afford the crazy money, but they are the people that need to be down the front; they’re the people that are gonna keep this music alive," he said.

“And then you get the people that they might be fans,” he continued, “but they wanna bring their wife and they don’t wanna get too hot and sweaty and all the rest of it. So, there’s some seats at the top or something else like that, what they’re gonna pick, and those get priced differently.”

In 2023, Dickinson announced his seventh solo album, The Mandrake Project, which he released earlier this month. He will also embark on a solo tour through Mexico and Brazil, beginning in April.

“This album has been a very personal journey for me and I am extremely proud of it,” he said in a press release at the time, according to Consequence. “Roy Z and I have been planning, writing and recording it for years, and I am very excited for people to finally hear it. I’m even more excited at the prospect of getting out on the road with this amazing band that we have put together, to be able to bring it to life.”

Dickinson left Iron Maiden in 1993 after nine years and five albums and then rejoined in 1999. Speaking to Classic Rock in February, the singer-songwriter reflected on his departure and said he still thinks it was the right move.

“I would have done, yes,” he said. “I wouldn’t have changed that, but I would have done it better. I would have had more of a plan.”

“I realized Iron Maiden [was] doing its thing and there was nothing anybody could do to change its trajectory. At the time, I was sitting there making what ended up being [second solo album] Balls to Picasso and I realized that I didn’t have much clue what to do outside of Iron Maiden," he said, adding that it was a "spur of the moment" decision.

In October, Iron Maiden will commence their North American tour in San Diego, California, and will wrap on Nov. 19 in San Antonio, Texas.