From Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter to Kendrick Lamar and SZA, 2025 promises to be another big year for live music events. That may also mean concert-goers will be shelling out more for their favorite shows.
After rising steadily post-pandemic, admission to movies, theaters, and concerts jumped 20% since 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index data.
And yet, consumers have demonstrated a high tolerance for the increasing price tag, also known as “funflation.”
Concert goers attended an average of seven shows in 2024, and most plan to see more in 2025, according to a recent report by CouponCabin.
The survey of more than 1,000 music fans in December found that nearly 36% said they will spend $100 to $499 on concert tickets in 2025, while over 17% plan to spend up to $1,000.
Chalk it up to ‘funflation’
After testing new limits in 2024, Americans proved a willingness to splurge — even travel abroad — to catch shows like Taylor Swift’s Era Tour, bringing so-called “passion tourism” into the spotlight, some experts say.
Younger adults, particularly Generation Z and millennials, have even said they would go into debt to pursue some of these experiences, other recent reports show.
Nearly two out of five Gen Z and millennial travelers have spent up to $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 to blame for the escalating price tag, according to Joe Bennett, a forensic musicologist at Berklee College of Music.
Originally coined by economists in the late 1920s, dynamic pricing refers the charging of a higher 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.
“We all know that if you are looking for an Uber or Lyft, there are certain times of night when it’s more expensive. The market seems to have adapted to that,” he said. “But concert tickets were generally a fixed price.”
That’s no longer the case. And now there is heightened awareness — and controversy — around the practice when it comes to buying highly sought-after event tickets.
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How and when dynamic pricing is used is at the discretion of the artist or management, according to Andrew Mall, an associate professor of music at Northeastern University — and it is often determined under the radar.
However, with so many recent high-profile tours, “for sure, dynamic pricing has surged to the forefront of concert goers’ attention,” he recently told CNBC.
Ticketmaster is under investigation in the U.K. for its recent use of dynamic pricing in sales of reunion concerts from Britpop band Oasis.
Many Oasis fans took to social media to complain that they ended up paying more than double the face value of the ticket without warning. The band said it would abandon the practice for the North American leg of its tour.
Taylor Swift reportedly refused to dynamically price her Eras Tour tickets because “she didn’t want to do that to her fans,” Jay Marciano, chairman and CEO of AEG Presents, which promoted the event, told HITS Daily 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, concerts “provided a larger source of income for performers than record sales or publishing royalties,” economist Alan Krueger wrote in a paper on the economic issues and trends in the rock and roll industry.
Live music industry revenue jumped 25% in 2023 alone, according to data from Statista.
Ticketmaster in 2011 first introduced an early version of dynamic ticket pricing, which is now the standard for live music ticketing sales.
In more recent years, “ticket sales went crazy” driven by post-pandemic pent-up demand and a surge in mega-star stadium tours, Bennett said.
“You can see why it’s tempting,” he said. “The live music industry is constantly leaving money on the table that fans would pay. Dynamic pricing is sort of a capitalist inevitability given the forces at play, but I don’t want 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 like it or not, according to Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief credit analyst.
“It’s not very popular, as you might imagine,” Schulz said. “Businesses and musicians are trying to see what the market will bear, and it makes things really difficult for the consumer.”
Why pricey tickets are here to stay
“Consumers don’t like the idea of dynamic pricing, but there is a renewed ‘YOLO’ [you only live once] attitude over the past few years since the pandemic and, increasingly, that drives a devil-may-care approach when it comes to spending on discretionary experiences,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com.
Even with household budgets strained, “you get to a point where there are just some experiences where consumers draw the line and say, that’s not something I’m willing to give up,” he said.
Ticket sellers are apparently aware of this mentality, too.
“Our research consistently tells us that concerts are a top priority for discretionary spending, and one of the last experiences fans will cut back on,” Live Nation said in a quarterly earnings call in 2023.
But as consumers continue to spare no expense to see their favorite artist or group, that means that means dynamic pricing is here to stay, at least for now.
“The live music sector has been leaning into this attitude for a long time,” Northeastern University’s Mall said.