Concert ticket prices are going thru the roof and have been for sometime now. Promoters, scalpers, third party ticket vendors and even unscrupulous artists (ie. the ones who scalp their own tickets) are all part of the problem.
With few exceptions, like NiN, who make it very difficult to scalp choice tix for their shows, in order to give true fans a fair chance at landing them for a decent price (not to mention Trent Reznor blowing the whistle on artists scalping their own tix), all everyone cares about is making loot. Whoever gets screwed, too bad.
Aside from a friend getting ripped off, there's not much sympathy for the price gouging of concert goers 'round these parts, particularly since that time when Pearl Jam waged war on TicketMonster and NO ONE, not fellow artists, not fans, backed 'em up. Plus theft, um, file sharing.
Exorbitant ticket prices is karmic payback, so...