Are concerts becoming too expensive?
Written by Francesca O’Callaghan
Credit: Nainoa Shizuru / Unsplash
Concert tickets have become a source of growing frustration for music fans, with dynamic pricing, hidden fees and resale markups turning the prospect of seeing a favourite artist into an increasingly expensive endeavour.
It is tempting to blame performers for charging more. But the economics of live music are more complicated than that.
Behind the eye-watering prices lies an industry transformed by streaming, and the commercialisation of the concert experience itself.
From records to shows
For much of the previous century, recorded music was the string that kept the music business together. Albums generated revenue, while concerts helped artists promote their records and build an audience.
The digital revolution disrupted that arrangement. Streaming platforms made millions of songs available at the touch of a button, but the revenue reaching individual artists fell dramatically.
According to Soundcamps (2026), artists can earn only a fraction of a cent per stream, compared with the income generated by selling a physical record. The precise amount varies according to platform, and how revenue is distributed, meaning that listening figures don’t always translate into a suitable income.
Live performance has consequently assumed a more important commercial role. Pollstar reported that the top 100 touring artists in North America generated $6.1bn in 2024 (£4.6bn), a 3% increase on the previous year.
It might not seem like it, but when you look beyond the prices of tickets, you understand that touring is an expensive business. There's a need to pay the likes of musicians, crew, transport, staging, lighting and venue hire.
Therefore, in industries where productivity is difficult to increase, wages and other expenses can rise without a corresponding increase in output. A singer cannot necessarily perform twice as many concerts in the same amount of time without adding further dates, people and costs.
The price of getting in
Ticketmaster's 2009 merger with concert promoter Live Nation created a company with interests spanning ticket sales, promotion and venue partnerships.
Critics argue that this gives the company considerable leverage over the live music market. As seen in May 2024 when the US Department of Justice sued Live Nation, alleging that its practices unlawfully maintained a monopoly. The company has disputed allegations of wrongdoing.
This is significant because it shows how ticketing operates within a wider commercial network, where the interests of artists, promoters, venues and platforms overlap. Fans quickly blame the company whose name appears at checkout, while the arrangements behind the fee are considerably less visible.
For devoted fans, the emotional value of attending can outweigh the financial calculation. This gives sellers room to charge more when demand is high, evident by dynamic pricing which adjusts initial prices, allowing promoters to capture revenue that would otherwise go to resellers.
But for fans, the result can be a ticket that costs considerably more than expected moments after sales open. The question is not merely whether demand is high, but who benefits from it.
The market
During Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, some tickets originally priced at around $210 (£159) were reportedly listed for thousands of dollars on the secondary market. The artist does not ordinarily receive the difference between the original price and a reseller's inflated asking price, although resale platforms may collect fees from transactions.
But why should a fan who happens to secure a ticket early pay one price, while another must pay several times more for the same seat?
The answer is rather revealing. Artists and promoters have limited control over every independent resale transaction, but measures such as face-value resale options and stronger protections against automated ticket-buying bots could help reduce opportunities for exploitation.
Olivia Dean's recent dispute with ticketing companies illustrates the issue. After resale listings for her North American tour reportedly exceeded 14 times face value, she criticised the secondary market as exploitative and called for greater protection for fans.
Writing on her Instagram page, Dean said: "Every artist and their team should be granted the option to cap resale at face value ahead of [tickets going] on sale, to keep the live music space accessible for all."
Who gets to be in the crowd?
Concerts have traditionally offered something that recorded music cannot reproduce: the collective experience of being in a room, singing alongside strangers and sharing a moment that exists only once.
Yet as ticket prices rise, access increasingly depends on disposable income. The average price of a ticket for a top-100 global tour reached $136 in 2023, according to Pollstar, around 50% higher than in 2019.
The irony is that music itself has never been more accessible. A subscription can unlock an extraordinary range of artists and genres, yet experiencing those artists live is increasingly reserved for those able to afford it.
Perhaps the question is not simply whether concerts have become too expensive. It is whether an industry built around a shared cultural experience can continue to thrive if an increasing number of its audience can no longer afford to take part.