Concert ticket prices are reshaping summer live music demand

This summer, mega-artist Harry Styles will take to the stage at New York City’s Madison Square Garden for a special 30-show residency; It is the only scheduled stop in the country and a show that has attracted great interest since its announcement.

Despite her best efforts, Shira Elfassy won’t be there.

“His tickets were ridiculous,” Elfassy, ​​29, told CNBC. “It felt like an insult to walk in and see that not only could I not get in, I didn’t have any tickets left, but even then the base price point for a nosebleed seat was $500, and that’s becoming commonplace.”

Instead, Elfassy said she bought tickets to see other artists like Florence + the Machine and Olivia Rodrigo live at much lower prices. He said the feeling that some gigs were “priced out” was now a common occurrence.

“It’s a weird dynamic right now. … At this point, if I have to make a decision between making more summer plans or hanging out with my friends or just just hanging out [to] “Pay the rent or I can go to this concert, no worries,” he said, “but it wasn’t like this before.”

Elfassy represents a growing group of consumers who are not willing to keep up with rising prices for live music; It creates a K-shaped demand curve, where high-income consumers spend more and inflate prices, while lower-income consumers pull back.

As Americans grapple with persistent inflation, economic uncertainty and now rising gas prices, this dynamic has also played out in discretionary spending categories like retail, dining and travel.

This K-shaped environment for live music is raising fears that the bottom end of the market will collapse altogether.

Some refer to demand shifts as “blue dot fever,” named for the blue dots on Ticketmaster seating maps that represent an unsold ticket. For some artists, this forces them to look at their performances with a critical eye. Post Malone, Zayn and The Pussycat Dolls are just a few of the artists who have canceled shows or tours in recent months; The last group openly admitted that low ticket sales were the catalyst.

Last summer, even before the latest price pressures, industry research suggested that higher ticket prices were helping support the overall health of the market. Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a 2025 report: live music request It was expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.2% between 2024 and 2030.

According to the report, the average ticket price for a concert on one of the top 100 global tours is $136 in 2024, up 50% from the average of $91 in 2019.

Many of the major ticket companies told CNBC they haven’t seen more show cancellations this summer than in an average year.

“Of all the shows Live Nation “Less than 1% of registrations were canceled this year,” a spokesperson for Ticketmaster said. “This isn’t ‘blue dot fever,’ it’s a normal touring year; in fact, 2026 is set to be a record one, with concert ticket sales up 11% year-on-year.”

Live Nation and Ticketmaster have faced scrutiny over the company’s ticketing practices and dominant influence in the music industry. The company faced legal challenges over allegations of anticompetitive behavior and reached a settlement with the Department of Justice in March. A federal jury found last month that Live Nation had an anticompetitive monopoly, but the company said in a statement expression “The jury’s verdict is not the final word on this matter,” he said at the time.

StubHubThe ticket seller told CNBC that the company is seeing a K-shaped model in live music taking shape, with demand diverging rapidly among various events.

While StubHub says overall concert demand is up about 10% year over year, that’s not true across the board. While ticket demand for stadium-scale events is increasing significantly, demand for medium- and small-sized venues is decreasing.

According to Jill Gonzalez, StubHub’s head of consumer communications, events that are struggling to sell face a “supply sizing problem.” He said the events that attract the most attention from fans are stadium tours, staycations and major festivals.

“Our data makes clear that fan demand for live music is not decreasing, but sharpening,” Gonzalez told CNBC. “Fans are making informed choices about where to spend, and when they decide a show is worth it, the demand signal is as strong as anything we see on our platform.”

Ticketing platform SeatGeek said the resale environment remains healthy as more artists announce tours.

“If you have more artists flooding the market with tours, the number of gross cancellations year over year is going to increase, which is to be expected,” said Oliver Marvin, the company’s senior director of strategic finance. “But the overall number of cancellations as a percentage of those touring isn’t that different from what we’ve seen in previous years.”

He added that the company is seeing some consumers turning to last-minute tickets, hoping prices will drop for tours that are not in immediate demand.

Experts say the decline in demand for some shows may be more subtle than meets the eye.

As prices rise everywhere and consumers become more conscious about how they spend their money, unsold tickets can be blamed on the macroeconomic environment rather than the artists themselves, according to Sam Howard-Spink, director of music affairs at New York University.

“It’s mostly about the economics of live performance and touring right now, which I would say is very closely tied to questions of economic conditions and cost of living right now,” Howard-Spink said.

He suggested that less spending among fans could turn a tour misstep into disaster; for example, when an artist plans to meet at an inappropriately sized venue or off-center market. While nostalgia for old shows occasionally draws crowds, it struggles to outweigh all other factors.

While major artists can still sell out an entire stadium, less popular acts fall short.

“Harry Styles, Bad Bunny, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande – these are the ‘I really won’t be in too much trouble’ acts,” he said. “But if you’re talking about an early 2000s band, you might not be able to attract that crowd, maybe they’re over-reliant on the kind of venues they think they can fill.”

Howard-Spink added that the music industry has long been viewed as largely “recession-proof,” even weathering the pandemic well. But unlike streaming music, concert tickets are a scarce resource, allowing prices to skyrocket.

Music publisher Eric Alper stated that artists could not foresee these currently active macroeconomic factors when making tour reservations months in advance. He also said that more artists participated in the tour this year than in previous years and the program became more crowded.

He added that with prices generally higher, fans are looking for more experiences that will give them value for their money, as the live music scene has seen a surge in residences as well as unique new venues like The Sphere in Las Vegas.

“What do people want, they want the choreography, they want the lights, they want superior sound, they want great viewing angles,” Alper said. “They’re not going to spend $150 to just sit there and watch a bare-bones band perform.”

Alper said he still believes that the fanatical fans are ready to pay the price.

“If you’re a fan of an artist, I don’t think you care as much about high ticket prices as people think,” Alper said. “People want that experience, and they also want to tell people they were there.”