Nothing is more disappointing to teenagers than to have their favorite band of all time come to town, and going online to buy tickets, only to find out that there is an age restriction for anyone under eighteen. Unfortunately for all of those teenagers, there are good reasons those restrictions are in place.

Most of the time, when a show is given an age restriction, it has more to do with the venue than it does with the band itself. The background of the venue and whether or not there is distribution of alcohol is what usually determines the age restriction on a given concert.

Alcohol is a huge reason to restrict certain ages from coming to a concert.

“Not all minors want to get drunk,” says Mahtab, a blogger from a website called Otherzine, “If we wanted alcohol, there are so many other, cheaper and more accessible means of getting it,” while it is understandable that not all teenagers are looking to get drunk, especially at a concert where the priority is to listen to the band, there are always a few who are looking to have a little more fun than is legally allowed. The venue cannot take that chance.

With the small chance of something like that actually happening, there are monstrous consequences that come with it. The underage drinker would get in a whole lot of trouble, and the respective venue could possibly lose its alcohol license and be fined a large sum of money, depending on the state the alcohol was sold in. In the LegalMatch law library, it states, “They[authorities] will usually give first time offenders a fine, warning and/or a suspension of the license.”

While there are ways to combat selling alcohol to minors, they are often tedious or easy to get around. For example, putting a black X on the backs of a minor’s hand is a good way for people to identify whether they are a minor or not, but they can be washed off in the bathrooms. And although it makes sense to just ID everyone who buys a drink, it is very tedious, and the bartender is usually too busy at that time to be checking people’s ID’s.

Liability is another factor in restricting minors from coming to these concerts. If a minor gets hurt, possibly from rather vicious activities that sometimes take place at heavy metal concerts, the venue can be held responsible and could get in a lot of trouble.

For all of the teenagers that feel the rules are unfair and need to be changed, just remember that the rules are there so that people will not get hurt, fined, shut down or all of the above. Turning eighteen, nineteen or twenty-one is inevitable. And when it happens, all of these problem become a thing of the past.