Why Are Concert Tickets So Expensive? Depends On Whom You Ask

There’s no disputing that concert tickets are more expensive than ever, with prices rising faster in the last three years than any previous period. Most of the major players in the concert business have recognized the rapid double-digit increase since the end of the pandemic, but few agree on what’s causing prices to spike or whether the increase represents a real problem.

“It’s like going to Disneyland on a really packed day and wondering, ‘How can so many people afford to be here right now?’” says Jed Weitzman, a ticket-pricing expert who specializes in the concert business. “Part of you wonders how a family of four can afford to be there, and yet, clearly, there’s no shortage of people willing to pay to get in.”

This year, the median ticket price to see one of the top 40 highest-grossing tours of 2024 — playing arenas and stadiums — will cost fans $151, according to data compiled by Billboard Boxscore. Three years from now, in 2027, the average cost of such a tour ticket is on track to hit $200 due to steady year-over-year increases to see in-demand top-tier acts like U2, The Weeknd, Sabrina Carpenter and Billy Joel.

Prior to the pandemic, the price of admission to a top 40 concert had increased 3% to 4% a year, according to Billboard Boxscore. That number more than doubled when touring resumed, increasing an average 9.9% annually. A recent study from Torsten Sløk, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, concluded that tickets were increasing at about 11% a year.

The reason for the price increase is less straightforward. Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter, attributes the escalation largely to the inflationary costs of global business in 2024. It also contends that tickets to see superstar talent, whether it be Oasis, Beyoncé or Bruce Springsteen, have long been underpriced by image-conscious artists who don’t want their fans to accuse them of price-gouging.

The problem with this argument, say officials with the U.S. Department of Justice who have filed a historic antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, is that it ignores the structural advantages the megapromoter enjoys against nearly all of its competitors. Prices are rising, the government claims, because Live Nation can outbid its rivals by overpaying for touring talent and making up its losses in the concert promotion sector through its affiliated businesses: venue ownership, Ticketmaster and sponsorships.

The government argues that by overpaying for talent, Live Nation is also passing on these increased costs to consumers through higher prices. The problem with this theory, many concert experts argue, is that it oversimplifies the economics of touring and lets the government off the hook for its failure to enforce the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, which was signed into law in 2016 to thwart mass ticketbuying by scalpers using bots.

That failure to rein in the illegal use of software and hacking tools — which lead to huge markups on the secondary market — these experts contend, has created a pricing crisis that has made accessing tickets to popular tours at face value practically impossible. In a piece on StubHub’s postponed initial public offering earlier this year, longtime music analyst Chris Castle alleged that the wholesale use of bots to acquire and sell concert tickets “is not a theoretical antitrust case,” but one “dealing with real-time massive consumer fraud” that’s “perpetuated and funded by the public financial markets.”

WME agent Kirk Sommer, whose artist clients include Bruno Mars, The Killers, Adele and Hozier, says he’s cognizant of what other artists are charging for tickets, but fans tend to evaluate concerts on a case-by-case basis and are less concerned about pricing trends.

“I’m never focused on creating one price for a tour that is going to satisfy an artist’s fans,” Sommer explains. “The goal is always to create a wide range of opportunities that fans from all income levels can buy into. It’s important there is something for everyone.”