In recent years, the price of a concert ticket has soared exponentially, well surpassing global inflation rates.
Since 1996, prices have soared 4.6 times the pace of inflation, jumping a staggering 428.7% and even 80.5% since 2021, making low-cost concert tickets a thing of the past and unlikely to come back in the near future.
Tickets and the cost of living
As ticket prices continue to soar, 57% of Australians reported having decided between basic living expenses and live events over the past six months, according to Tixels’ Behind the Ticket report.
Despite this, 62% of Australians said live events are a priority expense, up 6% year-over-year, and 60% are spending more on event tickets than last year.
According to Griffith University business and consumer expert, Graeme Hughes, a big factor in why concert goers are still buying tickets is because of fear of missing out (FOMO).
“Demand is sustained by pure emotional priority, with live music considered a critical social experience, a life milestone that overrides financial caution or concern,” Hughes tells Azzet.
However, RMIT senior lecturer in economics, Meg Elkins, says fans are often being more careful in what shows they are prioritising.
“People just prioritise a couple of events, so we've just got a smaller bucket for our entertainment allowance, which means that everyone's trying to go for the same events,” she says.
Due to everyone trying to go to the same events, this has caused people to fight for tickets, and Elkins says it has created a culture where getting a ticket to a much-anticipated event now feels like “you’ve won the lottery”.
“If you want to go to a concert these days, you have to take half a day off work and be prepared to sacrifice half of your salary for the week just to get a ticket, and so I think perhaps you win by getting a ticket to a very scarce concert,” she says.
Change in revenue
Despite global music revenue growing by 4.8% year-over-year to US$29.6 billion, artists’ share of this revenue was only 34.8% in 2024, according to a report by IFPI.
In recent years, artists have had to diversify their revenue streams to make ends meet, with artists making most of their money from touring and merchandising despite streaming revenue reaching a record of US$20.4 billion last year.
Elkins says this is especially true for smaller artists who don’t have the same backing behind them as larger acts.
“There's a resistance between somehow playing for those stable prices of live performances, which is where artists make most of their money,’ she says.
“At the moment, the economy only works for those top 1% of artists.”
Spotify doesn’t offer artists that much revenue, creating what Elkins says is the “perfect storm”.
“It's somewhat of a broken economic model,” she says.
“You've got a revenue side where streaming is destroyed, recorded music income.”
“The streaming itself to make yourself financially viable as an artist is incredibly difficult.”
Dynamic pricing and resale markets
Dynamic pricing has taken over the concert ticket market, with prices soaring while they are on sale to as much as A$500 for Green Day this year.
Dynamic pricing became commonplace on Ticketmaster, which is a provider for 82% of top-grossing amphitheatres and 78% of the top-grossing arenas in the U.S. in 2022.
The practice was said to be implemented to discourage ticket reselling and scalping, but it has sent the prices of in-demand concerts soaring.
“This volatility instantly erodes consumer confidence and creates a strong sense of being unfairly targeted and fleeced for profit,” Hughes says.
Some artists, like Ariana Grande, have banned dynamic pricing for their events; however, Elkins said this is more a reflection of the relationship between artists and their fans and is only viable for top artists, especially with platforms taking a percentage of the ticket revenue.
“It seems to me that the artists themselves have to sacrifice a little bit to make it affordable, and some artists have greater power, but we know the platforms themselves can take up to 20 to 30%,” Elkins says.
The resale market has also reached a volatile point where governments have begun to step in.
Most recently, the UK announced that it will ban the resale of live-event tickets at above face value. This followed fans complaining of massively inflated prices and artists like Sam Fender, Dua Lipa and Coldplay urging Prime Minister Keir Starmer to protect fans from exploitation.
In Australia, the rules vary from state to state, with many adhering to a rule where tickets can’t be sold for more than 10% above face value.
Will the prices go down?
Hughes says it is highly unlikely prices will go down with the current selling model.
“Promoters are still warning that underlying operational costs are climbing and the demonstrated high consumer demand means the market has no commercial incentive to drop prices,” he says.
Elkins suggests that for prices to decrease, legislation changes, like what has been seen in the UK, would need to be implemented.
She also says more support for artists and a shift away from Live Nation and Spotify’s dominance in the music industry would assist in a drop in prices.
“We need more grants for artists touring, particularly around regional shows, and more artist development grants,” she says.
“I think if you can take away some of that monopoly power of those big businesses like Spotify and Live Nation, then perhaps they can come down.”
The dominance Live Nation imposes over the industry as its subsidiary Ticketmaster faces an antitrust lawsuit.
The case, which was initially filed in 2022, accuses Live Nation of monopolising ticketing services and overcharging millions of customers since 2010.
Live Nation and Ticketmaster denied wrongdoing. This isn’t the first antitrust lawsuit Live Nation has found itself in.
In line with one of Elkins' suggestions, the Australian government has recently created major funds to keep the Australian live music scene alive, following a slew of cancelled festivals.
