Back in the summer, I wrote about my failed attempts to secure tickets for my daughter to see Taylor Swift on her Eras tour next summer. I ignominiously failed at the first hurdle, being dumped on the waitlist while others grabbed their seats.

It turned out that there was a twist in the tale. A fortnight ago, my daughter came back from school with the news that Taylor Swift had announced a further two Wembley dates.

Had I received an email, she was desperate to know. I looked through my mailbox: nothing. Then I checked my spam. Gulp.

There sat the modern-day equivalent of the Willy Wonka golden ticket: You’re Off The Waitlist! the email triumphantly announced.

Salisbury Journal: Taylor Swift

It wasn’t all good news. The fact that I’d missed the email meant that I’d also missed the sale for the first of the two extra dates.

That left the one remaining concert, which was to go on sale the following day. I did all the things I was advised to: checked my internet connection and that my bank details were correct, and joined the waiting room precisely ten minutes before the sale started.

 When sale time ticked round, I was told my place in the queue: 13,000. Given there were two ticketing agents and each person could buy up to four tickets, my rudimentary maths reckoned it was going to be touch and go if there was anything left.

As I agonisingly inched forward in the queue, Ticketmaster cheerfully gave me helpful updates about how this standing or that seating had sold out.

After twenty-five long, painful minutes, I was finally in. Pickings were slim but … at least there were pickings: I grabbed what I could, held my nose about the cost and after another tortuously slow wait for the payment to go through, got the all-important You’re In! message. My relationship with my daughter was saved.

 The Taylor Swift tour is doing eight sold-out nights at Wembley: a record. Look at that and you might think it is boom time for live music.

At the top end, it is: tickets for mega artists are selling out, despite the £100+ price tag.

Even further down the musical ladder, rocketing prices have not stopped sales: £80 for Ben Folds and £130 for Air are two concerts I’ve baulked at recently.

But at the bottom musical rung, it is a different story. This year, over 150 small music venues have closed, hit by the cost of living and energy prices.

That’s sad in itself but it’s also a problem for the music industry: without the small venues for artists to learn their craft, where will the next generation of Wembley stars come from?