I don't know, I don't think the prices are all that outrageous, really. I mean, what do the Stones charge these days? Wonder what the Zeppelin tickets would have cost had the tour happened? How much does Sir Paul rake in a pop? Madonna tickets in New York are like $350.00 or so.
I just paid $35.00 per seat to see Ratdog in November, about $80.00 total after charges, etc., and springing for two of the cheaper seats for the Charlottesville show only set me back $106.20 all together. Considering I get all four surviving members at once for this, it's like I'm only paying $12.00 each for Phil, Billy and Mickey.
Sure, when I started seeing the boys back in the Pleistocene tickets were about $10 - $18.00, but that was over 25 years ago now. Times, as I hope most of us have noticed, have changed. And I guarantee that were Jerry still alive, and the Dead were still touring with "Grateful" in the name with all of them present ( which I highly doubt, but just for arguments sake ) it wouldn't still be at 1995 prices. Especially if they had scaled back to one tour every other year, or once a year or so. Supply and demand rules the market.
The overhead for this tour will be huge. The Dead do not set the prices to play at the halls they play at - the arenas themselves and the promoters hash all that out. The band does need to bring in enough box office to pay for everything involved, though- and costs of everything are plumb freaking crazy these days, kids. And, let's be honest - most of the fan base is, shall we say, has a bit more of a "touch of grey" about them these days, so should be a bit better able to swing a hundred and fifty bucks or so. And if you can't, sorry - but most likely you weren't going to be able to afford to buy too many tickets back then either and would have been outside walking around with a finger in the air.
So, either suck it up, pay it, and don't let it piss you off to the point you can't enjoy it, or suck it up, don't pay it, and revel in your frugality. But bitching about it isn't going to do anything but poison the well. This isn't driven by some industry conspiracy and speculation like oil prices were.
Out of the loop? I didn't know there was a loop!