Harry Styles just announced a 30-night residency at Madison Square Garden and fans are already dreading the expense. 

Between Taylor Swift’s  Eras Tour, Beyoncé’s  Cowboy Carter Tour, Lady Gaga’s Mayhem Ball Tour, and every other pop star’s recent megawatt shows, we’ve come to expect astronomical ticket prices. Fans take out loans and max out credit cards just to see a sliver of a big screen showing an artist thousands of feet away. But we don’t have to accept this as reality. We don’t have to save up all year for our big night out, one that is bound to be disappointing, merely based on the amount of heightened expectation. Why waste our money on these often soulless experiences when we can go to smaller, more intimate, shows and have an even better time? 

«Support your local scene» is a mantra you’ll continually hear around independent artist spaces, but it’s more important to embrace than ever. Algorithms threaten to put us all in sonic echo chambers, where we only hear the same kinds of music and rarely challenge ourselves. Small artists are squeezed out by bigger ones, who demand outrageous ticket prices, and nothing is getting more affordable. It’s time that, as music fans, we seriously refocus and ask ourselves what’s truly important to us, and what we want to uplift. That means divesting from huge arena tours and investing in your local music scene.