Back in the Nineties, Pearl Jam famously sued Ticketmaster in an unsuccessful effort to rein in the runaway costs of attending a concert. These days, many are raising the same concerns — like Doc McGhee, Kiss’ longtime manager. In the late 1970s, when he was a young man on the rock scene, top concert tickets cost $10 to $11 (or about $50 to $55 in today’s dollars). Last year, according to Pollstar, the industry trade that monitors touring, the average ticket price had soared to around $132. That’s an increase of 38 percent just since 2019, when they cost a comparatively affordable $96.17. “It’s up to us,” McGhee says. “Until people say, ‘We’re not going,’ the prices are going up.”
This summer, that appears to be true. Entry to one of Harry Styles’ 30 dates at Madison Square Garden could cost you as much as $1,000; Alan Jackson’s sold-out touring finale at a Nashville stadium is prompting scalper prices of more than $5,000.
Industry veterans say that sky-high ticket prices are due to three key factors: supply and demand, as reflected in the controversial practice of dynamic pricing; rampant scalping; and one dominant company, Live Nation, controlling every source of revenue, including beer, food, parking, and Ticketmaster service fees, at its 61 amphitheaters and more than 200 other venues in North America. Many hoped the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2024 antitrust lawsuit would break up the world’s biggest promoter, but a March 9 settlement suggests that is unlikely to happen.
(In court, Live Nation disputed nearly every criticism made by sources in this story. “There is no evidence in the record that Live Nation or Ticketmaster drives higher ticket prices or that breaking up the company would lower them,” Dan Wall, the company’s executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs, says in a statement to RS. “If the DOJ or states had credible evidence, they would have presented it. They haven’t. After years of investigation and access to extensive data, there is still nothing tying our structure to higher prices.”)
The Justice Department settlement, which requires Live Nation to divest from 13 amphitheaters with which it has exclusive booking agreements, among other things, “isn’t even significant enough to call it a slap on the wrist,” says Stephen Parker, executive director of the National Independent Venue Association. Because the settlement is “virtually nothing” and “has no teeth,” adds a top promoter, prices and fees are almost certain to keep rising.
Even the biggest stars are often powerless to change this system, as Taylor Swift discovered on the Eras Tour. What’s more, Live Nation ticketing employees seemed dismissive of customers when they joked in internal messages about fans who are “so stupid” that the company was “robbing them blind baby,” in reference to high parking and VIP-package costs. (In court, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino called those messages “disgusting” and “not the way we operate.”)
John Scher, a New York promoter who has competed with the company for decades, claims that Live Nation strategically raises offers to artists for playing its own summer amphitheaters, rather than arenas where competing promoters can book shows. “If they play indoors, they have a choice of [second-biggest promoter] AEG, or an independent like me,” Scher says. “But Live Nation will say to acts, ‘If you wait and start the tour in April, we’ll pay you $350,000’ — and many of them say, ‘Fine.’”
‘Legalized exploitation of fans’
In a separate lawsuit, filed by the Federal Trade Commission against Live Nation and Ticketmaster last September, a central issue was “illegal ticket-resale tactics,” in which Live Nation reportedly invited scalpers to use bots to crowd fans out of on-sale queues.
“The price will not change until we stop this legalized exploitation of fans,” says Randy Nichols, a board member for the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO), which represents agents and managers for more than 5,000 acts. “Fans will pay less money when bots stop buying all the tickets and marking up the price.”
Bills currently pending in New York, California, and other states could cap resale prices, potentially allowing artists to set their own face-value prices and ensuring fans don’t have to pay much more than that — something that hasn’t been true since StubHub revolutionized the scalping business in the early 2000s. (For years, Ticketmaster itself has also resold tickets to its own shows online.) “New York has been at this for a long time, and California just introduced a price cap,” says Nathaniel Marro, NITO’s executive director. “There’s really hope here.”
Fielding Logan, head of touring for management company Q Prime South, which represents artists like Eric Church, Ashley McBryde, and the Brothers Osborne, disagrees with the prediction of higher fees due to Live Nation’s corporate dominance. “I can unequivocally say that is not going to make a whit of difference to ticket prices,” he says. “What makes a difference to ticket prices is there are more people who want to attend said show than there are tickets available at those prices.”
But John Kwoka, a Northeastern University economics professor who specializes in antitrust, thinks that supply and demand aren’t enough to explain what’s happening. “I’m one of the economists who’ve argued you need to break up some companies,” he says. “[Live Nation] is one of the companies that proves that.”
Linda Ramone and John Travolta Sean Sabhasaigh/Getty Images
