From Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter to Kendrick Lamar and SZA, 2025 guarantees to be one other big yr for live music events. That may additionally mean concertgoers might be shelling out more for his or her favorite shows.
After rising steadily post-pandemic, admission to movies, theaters and concert events jumped 20%Â since 2021, in accordance with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index data.
And yet, consumers have demonstrated a high tolerance for the increasing price tag, also referred to as “funflation.”
Concertgoers attended a mean of seven shows in 2024, and most plan to see more in 2025, in accordance with a recent report by CouponCabin.
The survey of greater than 1,000 music fans in December found that almost 36% said they may spend $100 to $499 on concert tickets in 2025, while greater than 17% plan to spend as much as $1,000.
Chalk it as much as ‘funflation’
After testing recent limits in 2024, Americans proved a willingness to splurge — even travel abroad — to catch shows like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, bringing so-called passion tourism into the highlight, some experts say.
Younger adults, particularly Generation Z and millennials, have even said they might go into debt to pursue a few of these experiences, other recent reports show.
Nearly two out of 5 Gen Z and millennial travelers have spent as much as $5,000 on tickets alone for destination live events, one recent study from Bread Financial found.
Why concert tickets got so expensive
Dynamic pricing is partly guilty for the escalating price tag, in accordance with Joe Bennett, a forensic musicologist at Berklee College of Music.
Originally coined by economists within the late Twenties, dynamic pricing refers the charging of a better price at a time of greater demand. Consumers often associate it with shifting airline ticket prices or how ride-hailing services adjust fares at busy times, Bennett said.
“Everyone knows that should you are in search of an Uber or Lyft, there are particular times of night when it’s dearer. The market seems to have adapted to that,” he said. “But concert tickets were generally a set price.”
That is now not the case. And now there may be heightened awareness — and controversy — across the practice in relation to buying highly sought-after event tickets.
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How and when dynamic pricing is used is on the discretion of the artist or management, in accordance with Andrew Mall, an associate professor of music at Northeastern University — and it is commonly determined under the radar.
Nonetheless, with so many recent high-profile tours, “of course, dynamic pricing has surged to the forefront of concertgoers’ attention,” he recently told CNBC.
Ticketmaster is under investigation within the U.K. for its recent use of dynamic pricing in sales of reunion concert events from Britpop band Oasis.
Many Oasis fans took to social media to complain that they ended up paying greater than double the face value of the ticket without notice. The band said it could abandon the practice for the North American leg of its tour.
Swift reportedly refused to dynamically price her Eras Tour tickets because “she didn’t want to do this to her fans,” Jay Marciano, chairman and CEO of AEG Presents, which promoted the event, told HITS Each day Double in October.
How ticket pricing evolved
Throughout the 21st century, revenue from recorded music has gone down while revenue from live music events has gone up. By the mid-2000s, concert events “provided a bigger source of income for performers than record sales or publishing royalties,” economist Alan Krueger wrote in a paper on the economic issues and trends within the rock and roll industry.
Live music industry revenue jumped 25% in 2023 alone, in accordance with data from Statista.
Ticketmaster in 2011 first introduced an early version of dynamic ticket pricing, which is now the usual for live music ticketing sales.
In newer years, “ticket sales went crazy” driven by post-pandemic pent-up demand and a surge in megastar stadium tours, Bennett said.
“You may see why it’s tempting,” he said. “The live music industry is always leaving money on the table that fans would pay. Dynamic pricing is type of a capitalist inevitability given the forces at play, but I don’t need to live in a world where it costs $1,000 for my daughter to see Taylor Swift.”
Still, it’s now common for ticket-selling platforms to charge more per ticket depending on demand for the event at any given time — whether consumers prefer it or not, in accordance with Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief credit analyst.
“It isn’t very fashionable, as you may imagine,” Schulz said. “Businesses and musicians try to see what the market will bear, and it makes things really difficult for the buyer.”
Why pricey tickets are here to remain
“Consumers don’t love the thought of dynamic pricing, but there may be a renewed ‘YOLO’ [you only live once] attitude over the past few years because the pandemic and, increasingly, that drives a devil-may-care approach in relation to spending on discretionary experiences,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com.
Even with household budgets strained, “you get to some extent where there are just a few experiences where consumers draw the road and say, that is not something I’m willing to offer up,” he said.
Ticket sellers are apparently aware of this mentality, too.
“Our research consistently tells us that concert events are a top priority for discretionary spending, and considered one of the last experiences fans will in the reduction of on,” Live Nation said on a quarterly earnings call in 2023.Â
But as consumers proceed to spare no expense to see their favorite artist or group, that signifies that means dynamic pricing is here to remain, a minimum of for now.
“The live music sector has been leaning into this attitude for a very long time,” Northeastern University’s Mall said.
