For the concert sector, 2023 was a year rich in champagne. The worst of the pandemic was comfortably behind us, shows big and small were selling out, with mega-tours from Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Drake and Bruce Springsteen pushing the industry to record ticket sales.
This year, as in much of the economy, success on the road seems more fragile. A series of high-profile cancellations and slow sales of some major events have raised questions about a crowded market and whether ticket prices have simply become too expensive.
Most noticeably, Jennifer Lopez and the Black Keys canceled entire arena tours. In the case of the Black Keys – a popular rock radio station and touring venue for nearly two decades – the fallout was severe enough that the band parted ways with its two managers, industry giant Irving Azoff and Steve Moir. Through a representative, Azoff and Moir said they had “amicably parted ways” from the group.
At Coachella, usually so busy that it sells out well before artists are announced, tickets for the second of the California festival’s two weekends were still available when it opened in April.
These problems have generated headlines that the concert sector could be in trouble. But the reality, many insiders say, is more complex, with no simple explanation for the problems encountered on various tours, and with business that may be stabilizing after an extraordinary few years when fans flocked to shows after Covid shutdowns -19.
“I think it’s back to the pre-Covid era,” said Rich Schaefer, president of global touring at AEG, the company behind tours by Swift and the Rolling Stones. “Hot bands are going to sell tickets. Intermediate acts will sell, but take longer. And groups that don’t generate a lot of interest are going to struggle.”
In a statement, Live Nation said that sales so far this year are up from the same point in 2023, with more than 100 million tickets sold. “Every year,” the company said, “some events are naturally interrupted for various reasons, and in 2024, across all venue types, we saw a 4% cancellation rate, which is stable compared to the ‘last year.”
In addition to Swift’s Eras tour, which continues to be a phenomenon in Europe, this year’s headline events include tours by Olivia Rodrigo, Coldplay, Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan. Other festivals, like Lollapalooza in Chicago, have seen particularly strong sales.
Still, major cancellations of high-priced shows pose another possible public relations problem for Live Nation, the owner of Ticketmaster, which was sued last month by the Justice Department over accusations that it operates an illegal monopoly which stifles competition and leads to high prices and fees. . Live Nation has denied the allegations.
The biggest concern across the industry is that ticket prices, which have been rising steadily for years, could now be so high that they deter fans from all shows except those that only take place ‘once in their life. Tickets, even for many major tours, no longer disappear instantly.
When Billie Eilish put her latest arena tour on sale in April, for example, seats on the upper level of some venues cost more than $200 and took weeks to sell.
A joint tour by rapper Future and producer Metro Boomin, who shared two No. 1 albums and a chart-topping single earlier this year, has also been delayed. Even with tickets as low as $44.50, the opening concert in Kansas City, Mo., in July still has thousands of seats for sale across the board. Much to the chagrin of underperforming groups, the strength or weakness of sales is now evident in real time on Ticketmaster, which displays blue dots for each unsold seat (and pink dots for those offered for resale).
Last year, the average ticket price for one of the 100 biggest world tours was $131, up 23 percent from the previous year, according to Pollstar, a trade publication that tracks concert tickets.
Steve Martin of Paladin Artists, a booking agent for classic rock acts like Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, said that below the level of pop superstars like Swift, artists have become acutely aware of the economic pressures faced their fans.
“Most of the business is things like classic rock packages,” Martin said. “These people are much more price sensitive. Working class people worry about groceries and the price of gas.
No single explanation can cover all of the problems encountered in the live market this year. Some tours, like the Black Keys, may simply be the result of the band overestimating demand.
In 2021, the Black Keys left their longtime manager for a new partnership with Azoff and Moir, who also work with John Mayer and the Grateful Dead spinoff Dead & Co., and the band subsequently hailed “the Azoff’s emphasis on touring and selling our tickets.” » But even after releasing a new album – the band’s 12th – in April, concert sales lagged, leading to cancellations and behind-the-scenes housekeeping.
In a social media post after dropping the tour, the band said they would “make some changes” to their tour plan to provide a “more intimate experience.” A representative for the group’s label did not respond to a request for comment on the management changes.
Nostalgia alone may not be enough to easily fill theaters across the country. Lopez, while still a movie star and tabloid fixture, hasn’t had a hit song in a decade. Tickets to see Justin Timberlake’s current arena tour are available on both primary and secondary markets, with prices on StubHub sometimes falling well below face value.
Fans outside of high-demand markets like New York and Los Angeles don’t always need to rush into the digital queue the moment tickets go on sale. Some genres, like hip-hop, tend to sell tickets more slowly than others, but can still sell out before the show starts. The final stop on Nicki Minaj’s tour, for example, is a sea of blue dots.
Many factors factor into ticket price, from gas costs and crew salaries – which have increased since the pandemic – to the broader economics amortized over the course of a tour whole. Global promoters like Live Nation and AEG often offer artists a guaranteed payment covering all their shows; a bigger guarantee means prices have to be higher to recoup that investment.
Dan Wall, Live Nation’s executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs, said that while promoters can suggest prices based on a guaranteed deal, “it’s the artist’s team that ultimately decides account of the price of tickets.
Casual analysis of ticket sales has become another element of modern fandom to memorize and use as a weapon, raising the stakes. As industry watchers on social media race to demonstrate the dominance of their favorites, screenshots of available seats for upcoming concerts have gone viral, leading to media coverage.
“I feel like people online have kind of realized that you can look up seating charts and see how shows are going,” said Sam Hunt, executive at the touring agency Wasserman Music. “So I think part of it is that maybe not much has changed in the touring business – not every swing is a home run – but people are paying more attention to it. attention and have a typically Internet response.”
Still, some music fans feel like large-scale concerts are more of a luxury than they once were.
Cliff Russell, 39, said in an interview that his two teenage daughters are interested in attending blockbuster tours this year by artists like Rodrigo, Drake, Eilish and Swift.
But after the family, living outside Toronto, spent big on tickets to see Swift’s Eras tour in November — with costs totaling nearly $3,000 for four tickets, “not including the transportation, parking and souvenirs” – spending an extra $300 per ticket for seats on the upper level. seeing another pop star just wasn’t in the cards.
“What used to be the price of a Holy Grail ticket is now the average,” Russell said. “You have to be really picky and demanding.”