The question is repeated after the recent shows of Taylor Swift in Argentina. Why are tickets for concerts by international artists so expensive? How much is too much? The tours of today’s legendary entertainment figures, such as Swift, Beyoncé or Bad Bunnytypically have tickets over $100, and prices could see an increase.
Bunny, who tours the United States with his tour “Most Wanted”, received criticism on social media when ticket pre-sale opened on October 25: fans shared their displeasure because seats cost between $150 and $250. And the same thing happened last year to Elton John, who won in 2022 with the highest gross sales: $393.3 million. “El Último Tour Del Mundo” which was joined by “World’s Hottest Tour”, had sold out shows with tickets of up to 200 dollars.
Reasons. Bad Bunny and Elton’s prices are not part of a trend. The cost of tickets for big tours has increased steadily since 2019, with an increase of 35% according to the specialized publication Pollstar. Eric Frankenberg, senior data analyst at Billboard, pointed out against the dynamic pricing system, regulated by demand, and the growing resale market as justification for the new trend. “Dynamic pricing is a new strategic ticketing practice in which concert prices behave the same way airline prices or Uber prices do when there is high demand,” Frankenberg explained. .
“And we can also resell tickets on Ticketmaster. “There is probably a lot of money being made on the secondary market, and with values higher than the official ticket prices.” For Catherine Yi, talent strategy executive at UTA, although concertgoers are visibly outraged by the increase in ticket prices, that does not stop fans from shelling out the money they are asked to get a ticket.
“When people are really interested in a show, they will do whatever it takes to attend, even if the price doesn’t quite suit them, this is the phenomenon we have seen on the tour of Taylor Swift. “People prioritize live music events and are willing to put up the credit cards, make payment plans, and splurge when it’s important to them,” Yi said.
For Jem Aswad, music editor of Variety, the increase is inherent to the current economy, and the blame cannot fall on ticket holders or artists. “Everyone blames Ticketmaster, Live Nation and the artists for these prices, but if that is what the market will bear, what are we supposed to do?
Resale
In 2023, ticket prices for some concerts have skyrocketed to the equivalent of a month’s rent or a mortgage payment. But that still hasn’t deterred music fans from trying to get tickets to see their favorite artists on tour. In fact, there has been an increase in the number of people seeing live music after the pandemic. And it is worth saying that face value tickets move semi-affordable pricesbut as resellers enter the business, their cost has even exceeded a thousand dollars on some tours in the United States.
For the Los Angeles Times, “five actors” are responsible for the fluctuation of ticket costs: artists, promoters, concert venues, ticketing companies and ticket resellers. While promoters “officially set ticket prices,” they can lose money if the show doesn’t sell enough tickets. And music’s biggest artists tend to have control over pricing, while smaller artists are often beholden to venues.
The venues make money in any case, but with greater demand and tours, they have increased rents. While promoters are paid through ticket sales. According to a report from the US Government Accountability Office, an average of 27% was added to the cost of the sale initial tickets –since 2018- due to the increase in promoter rates. And for The New York Times, the fees “added an average of 32 percent.” That is to say, in the cheapest concerts, more than 50% of the ticket value can go to the company that promotes and sells the tickets.
Position
Artists and producers could be tempted to switch to other ticket holders, which is already happening. But there are certain venues that have “exclusive agreements with promoters like Live Nation Entertainment, which also owns Ticketmaster,” explains Bob Lefsetz, a former record label executive. “AND Ticketmaster is the only company that has the technology to sell tickets for high-demand events because he has cornered the market and has the money,” he adds.
But the system is not infallible. When fans of Taylor Swift attempted to purchase tickets through Ticketmaster for the singer’s Eras tour in November 2022, chaos ensued. Some buyers were locked out of the sale when their verified fan codes didn’t work, while others were initially able to get tickets but were then not validated in the process once they tried to pay. Two dozen swifties not only filed a lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, but took their complaints all the way to court in Washington. And the US Department of Justice launched an antitrust investigation into Ticketmaster and Live Nation Entertainment.
The company apologized and explained its registration process. Verified Fanwhich aims to help manage high-demand sales and eliminate bots, and noted that more than 3.5 million people pre-registered for the TaylorSwiftTix pre-sale powered by Verified Fan, which was its largest registration in history.
The company attributed the disaster to “historically unprecedented demand,” and Swift disclaimed responsibility, noting that she and her team had “been asked, several times, if they could handle this type of demand.” The singer also wrote on X that she was “actively working on a solution.”
Policy
In June, President Joe Biden waded into the issue, denouncing “hidden fees” on concert tickets throughout last year. So, several ticketing companies, including Ticketmaster, they promised to start showing all rates to customers in advance. Live Nation implemented a new policy since September offering “a clear total price” for all shows and festivals owned by the corporation.
In addition, the White House promised that it would walk the path to regulate the secondary ticket market on platforms, where companies such as StubHub and SeatGeek compete that “compete with fans for seats” with employees or robots, which creates less offer for fans. The Biden administration explained in a statement that promoters sometimes give tickets to these brokers “to capture a share of the highest secondary market prices without the risk of tarnishing their reputation.”
“This is a truly market-driven platform,” defended Jessica Finn, StubHub spokesperson. “The value of the ticket is what buyers think the value of the ticket is, and they effectively agree to that with a purchase… It’s a dynamic market, prices go up and down, and we don’t meddle in that,” she added.
But SeatGeek confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that the average price of a concert ticket has doubled in the last five years, going from $125 in 2019 to $252 in 2023. And that the average price of a resold Taylor Swift ticket It is $1,311. Tickets for Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen have soared to $480 and $469, according to the company.
However, some Swift tickets for the Eras Tour fetched nearly $13,000 on Stubhub, according to Insider. And last year, scalpers sold tickets to Adele in Las Vegas for more than $40,000, according to Bloomberg. Thus, as some economists have suggested, musical shows by leading figures even leverage an inflationary cycle.
by RN
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