As Kaiser covered yesterday, J.Lo finally pulled the ripcord on her This Is Me… Live tour that was scheduled for this summer. The album the tour would have been promoting, This In Me… Now, was not well received when it dropped in February (nor were the musical film and documentary released alongside it), and within a month of announcing the tour, show dates were already being canceled. Jennifer spent a hot minute trying to spin the lackluster sales into no-big-deal, but I agree with Kaiser that canceling the whole tour was the right, sound move for J.Lo to make. And she’s not alone! Many music artists are canceling shows lately, so much so that NBC News did a deep dive to try and suss out what’s not working in the current touring model. It kind of boiled down to three things: monopoly, money, and an oversaturated market.
Live Nation & Ticketmaster are still making money: Many of those tours are being sold through Ticketmaster and its parent Live Nation. And prior to facing landmark accusations that it is a monopoly, a claim it denies, Live Nation reported its biggest first quarter ever, with $3.8 billion in revenues. Its concerts business alone was up 26% to $2.9 billion, while “estimated fans” globally were up more than 20%, and up 42% in North America.
It’s the economy, stupid: Dave Clark, editor of Ticket News, which tracks the live entertainment industry, said the period of explosive live music growth following pandemic reopenings may in hindsight be seen as an aberration: People were simply more eager — and more financially able — to go to as many shows as they could after months cooped up indoors. This year, Clark said, a reckoning may be emerging. “The days where there was enough demand to sell out arenas at top dollar just isn’t there in this live events economy — outside of people like Taylor Swift who can sell whatever they want wherever they want,” he said. At a time when many consumers are struggling to pay for basic necessities, he said, “people are seeing some of the prices they’re asking and just saying, ‘Hard pass.’”
‘A very overloaded market’: Another factor may be a supply issue, Clark added: too many acts trying to tour at once, or too many times. In the pre-streaming era, bands would go on tour as a way of marketing an album. These days, he said, it’s reversed, since the returns on recorded music have shrunk dramatically. “Now they’re making records to sell the tour,” he said. “That paradigm has a lot to do with it. It’s just a very overloaded market.”
Fewer small venues mean more expensive tickets: But experts say recent economic trends in the live-music industry, especially the types of consolidation the Justice Department is now targeting, have translated into fewer smaller-sized venues. That’s made it more difficult for a given tour date to make financial sense for the artist, venue and promoter. “Some shows, they can’t afford to drop prices; they can’t afford to wait to try to sell out the rest of the building,” Clark said. If there is uncertainty about all stakeholders being able to at least break even, he said, the show might get canceled.
One K-pop fan from NJ speaks: Such realities have collided with a more circumspect concertgoer. Brittney D’Mello, a 23-year-old K-pop fan from New Jersey who works in corporate marketing, posted to X about her frustrations with the current touring landscape. “The tickets are too expensive,” D’Mello said. “There’s only a SMALL amount of people (10%) that will spend $500+ on vip/floor/premium,” she said. “The rest of us have budgets and won’t spend $100 on nosebleeds,” she said, referring to seats that are typically the farthest away from the stage. … “I will only go see two artists that are my tried-and-true favorite artists,” she said. “But I won’t be casually going to concerts anymore.”
The system as it is now cannot hold. I’m cautiously optimistic about the DOJ going after the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly, which it definitely is, despite Live Nation’s denial. They basically admitted as much in their clapback to the lawsuit: “Live Nation can offer and has offered fans, artists, venues and the rest of the performance ecosystem better prices and better services than they would receive if these complementary businesses were separated.” To the minions at Live Nation PR, this is not the rebuttal you think it is. “But it benefits everyone if you just let us run every aspect of the business!!!” Yeah, so this is a good start — going after the biggest player, the group that has done the most to consolidate resources and venues. But I still can’t figure out the way around rising production costs translating to higher ticket prices, which in turn leads to the results reviewed here: consumers opting out. Cause Ms. D’Mello is right, $100 for nosebleed seats is outrageous and $500+ for good seats is highway robbery. Plus if we’re talking Madonna tix, then you also have to factor in the legal costs for when you end up suing her for starting egregiously late. This Is Me… Broke!
I’m a HUGE fan of Hozier and have been for years and buying tickets to see him this season has been terrible. I saw him 3X on his last tour pre-pandemic and paid about $75 per show with amazing seats. This time I have horrible tickets cause they artificially sell out the good seats. But I’ll magically be able to get those good seats if I pay $500+ through another site. I’m also a huge Greta Van Fleet fan and have been super dismayed at how hard tickets are to get, even though they tour nearly non-stop. All this makes me want to stop going to shows. BREAK UP THE MONOPOLY!! 😡
I saw GVF last month at a festival.it was 400 dollars for 4 days and about 80 or so bands. I’m sticking to festivals.
I’ve seen GVF several times at mid-sized venues over the past few years with good seats under $100 including all the fees. For their most recent tour, they were in a pro sports venue for at least $500 for any seat that was on a rail or lower than halfway up the second or on the 3-4th tier. Sorry guys, nope. With travel, parking and maybe a meal beforehand, I can take a nice long weekend vacation for that kind of money.
Yeah, it’s not just the monopoly, it’s that Ticketmaster/Live Nation bots buy up all (well, a massive percentage) of tickets right away and then those scalped tickets can have whatever resale price Ticketmaster/Live Nation chooses to set.
[I know not all the bots are TM/LN, but a massive number apparently are.]
I wouldn’t even necessarily mind paying big bucks to see my favorite performers – BTS puts on an absolutely amazing show, and every element of the experience, from the fans trading swaps beforehand at the venue to the incredible performance the boys put on is well worth it.
But I do mind when most of what I’m paying is the resale upcharge, so it in no way benefits the performers, just the bots.
One easy way to end scalping is to require the credit card used to purchase the tickets in the first place to enter the venue. It’s how London theaters were preventing scalping for tickets to hot shows like Hamilton and Harry Potter (at least in 2019, the last time I was in a theater city!). Yes, it means if you buy tickets and then sincerely can’t attend it’s harder to recoup your costs, but if you sell to a trusted friend you can also lend them your credit card just to swipe to get in, etc.
And isn’t that less common inconvenience better than bots swooping in and buying all the tickets and then charging 5x as much?!
Break up the monopoly, put an end to bot access (esp TM/LN bots), and stop scalping! That’s what Congress needs to make happen.
My Matt Stoller newsletter email from 23 May says Antitrust Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter (i.e., Justice Department) and 30 state attorneys general, filed a suit asking for Live Nation/Ticketmaster to be broken up.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-live-nation-ticketmaster-monopolizing-markets-across-live-concert:
“The lawsuit, which includes a request for structural relief, seeks to restore competition in the live concert industry, provide better choices at lower prices for fans, and open venue doors for working musicians and other performance artists.”
Is it just me or is Pink on an never ending tour? Has she become one of those artists that are just on the road and dont really sell their music anymore. Dont remember the last time her music had any impact.
I saw Pink last August in Minneapolis where she set a new attendance record – 44,152 – at Target Field (amazing show, by the way). Before her, the venue records had been held by the likes of Billy Joel, the Eagles, Green Day (multi-billed with Weezer), Imagine Dragons, Zac Brown Band, Backstreet Boys … )
This spring, Pink announced an October 2024 show at the Xcel Energy Center (11 miles away from Target Field in neighboring St. Paul, capacity: 20,554). Soon after, she announced a second night there based on demand.
She’s definitely having an impact if she’s able to draw those kinds of crowds in quick succession in one metro area – but she is also, yes, on a never-ending tour,
I think she’d be getting more headlines for if she hadn’t been up against Taylor and Beyonce. Target Field isn’t the only MLB stadium were she set new attendance marks last summer.
I love Pink’s music! I missed her tour (and sounds like I might not have gone if the prices are that high), but we play her music loud in our house on a regular basis. I love it for the shower and trying to get my energy up when I’m feeling unmotivated. I just had to accept the fact that I’ll never be able to sing like she can!
Pink is a Legacy Artist and they make the most money on tour because their fans are older and have more money to buy expensive tickets. You will always see older bands on the most profitable lists for tours every year
Legacy artists don’t expect new singles chart hits. They will probably still go top-5 with each album release, and barely perform one or two songs from the new album each tour.
You see the problem is the live audience wants you to play the 20 greatest hits they know – new stuff has trouble fitting in to the set list anyway, but given most people won’t know new songs like they know the old familiar hits they become the de facto toilet break moment. So people don’t *get* to know them well enough to want to lateral them either.
Touring and merchandise is how most artists make their money. Releasing albums or dropping new songs for streaming only make pennies. It’s always been that way. It’s rare, RARE, for an artist or band to make money off music alone.
I remember how Ticketmaster basically bragged about how horrible it was for fans buying Taylor Swift tickets. They don’t care about the customer so their statement tracks. I still don’t get their pricing system. How $100 tickets become $1000 due to demand. How is that even legal?
I spent about 1400 for 2 tickets for T Swift. I probably will never see her again. So I spent the extra on decent tickets. But it was an absolute cluster…… to get those tickets.
The US’s Justice Department is suing Live Nation-Ticketmaster and asking for it to be broken up.
The Office of Public Affairs press release (23 May) says the basis is that LN-T “unlawfully exercises its monopoly power in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. As a result of its conduct, music fans in the United States are deprived of ticketing innovation and forced to use outdated technology while paying more for tickets than fans in other countries.”
It’s interesting to be seeing this at this moment for very personal reasons – I wrote a book about a friend of mine who’s been a music promoter since the early 1980s, and one of the things that emerged as I was doing the writing was seeing the shift as it evolved, and its impact on Concert World and individual people in the industry – not the performers, but the people behind the scenes who make the shows possible and the structure underpinning it all.
Can I ask the title of your book? Is it available? I worked in concert promoting in the late 90s and would love to read it.
It’s called “We Had Fun and Nobody Died.”
The ones I would pay to see are either dead, retired, or not in their prime anymore.
Right there with you….now get off my lawn! Our ‘cutting edge’ is now grocery store musak.
@bravo
Same here. But, i feel for people who are fans of the living. Art should be for everyone. This world has gone mad. Can we go back to… 10, 20, 30 years ago?
It’s not so much the ticket prices as much as the fees!! I think I’m paying around 100-150 and then the fees just about double the price!
Agreed. I just paid $49.50 each for two tickets to see a couple of 90s era bands and the fees ballooned the price to $145 total.
Yes! Even if ticket prices are relatively affordable, the fees are insane! And that’s not just for concerts – I have the same issue when I try to buy tickets to a theater production. I’ll find seats that seem reasonable and then its like, oh and here’s another 75 in fees. Its ridiculous.
If you live on n NY, it’s a pain but going to the box office and buying directly saves a ton of money
Many years ago when I still went to music concerts, theaters, other events, I always bought the tickets directly from the venue windows in person if it’s available to save those fees. Sure, the venues also charge fees, but cheaper than from online sellers with extra fees.
In the late 90s & early 2000s I could get a nosebleed seat in the arena under $50 with fee. Since late 2000s (I guessed) the shows I wanted to see, if they’re in the arena or stadium, charged around $100 for nosebleed seats before the extra fees. Small venues (less than 2500/3000) were more affordable choices.
Exactly!! The fees are INSANE, and for WHAT??
Yup–same problem with Broadway tickets. Ridiculous prices for not-great seats–and the fees triple the basic price. And given that B’way depends on tourists, that is a killer given how expensive it is to travel to NYC anyway unless you are loaded.
This is a long standing issue which have been solved many years ago when the artists like Pearl Jam tried to inform the public and lawmakers. In the meantime, this company grew bigger and bigger and their bot selling system has been perfected. Ticketmaster allows the bots to buy most of the tickets, then makes additional money with increased resale tickets. I am 100% sure the artist also gets a cut from this type of resale. There is a system already for the artist only to allow resale at face value, which Billie Eilish and some smaller artists are already using. Others would also give a sh*t if they didn’t make a profit and get good headlines about how they sold all the tickets in an hour or something.
On Beyonce’s SM, people are begging not to announce the new tour because they didn’t save enough money right now. Artists like Beyonce, TS will be getting all the money people are saving for concerts, so the smaller artists don’t have a chance to survive in this. Even when things weren’t this bad, they were just making money enough to survive on road.
hello! 90s me vividly remembers Eddie Vedder trying to fix this
I’m so old, I remember Tom Petty trying to fix this in the ’80s.
In this economy, where many are struggling, people are picking and choosing concerts carefully. No one wants to pay hundreds of dollars to see someone lip sync or only perform new music that sucks.
Glad to hear that Ticketmaster and Live Nation may be broken up in the US as they’ve had a monopoly on live shows for too long, gouging fans with a litany of stupid fees while providing a terrible customer buying experience.
Pearl Jam took on Ticketmaster in the 90’s (much to their detriment at the time) because they were gouging fans. Time for history to repeat itself and do better this time…
Yeah–Ticketmaster and Live Nation have been getting away with murder. Glad Biden and the DOJ has them in their sights…
Most of the artists that I want to see live are jazz musicians. Tickets are usually under $100, and sometimes as low as $10. While it works for me that there’s not much pop music that I’d want to hear live — even for free — it’s distressing to see how music has become commodified, leaving experiences like concerts with popular artists and groups beyond the reach of so many. The performers and their audiences both lose while the middleman profits.
This feels like an important piece in what’s happening socially and politically as well. We’ve become increasingly poorly educated as citizens, and many confuse “democracy” with “capitalism” and vote accordingly— to their own (and to our even greater) detriment .
This Friday I might go to a concert. I’ll buy a ticket at the door, and the venue prioritizes paying and supporting the musicians at prices that the community can handle. Win-Win-Win. I feel very lucky to have options like these — beyond the reach of Ticketmaster, at least for now.
Live nation owns A LOT of venues and is also signing artists so they are like an agent. If the independent venues (becomes less and less) wont agree to use ticketmaster as their partner for selling the tickets I have heard that Live Nation will not let them book artists that are on their roster. Oak view group is another entity in this mess . These companies all have one person in common, Irving Azoff (might be others too). He is incredibly powerfull in the music industry he has the full stop management company as well. During the 80’s there were rumours of mafia ties to him as he helped restructure MCA. I think people should do a little google search on the azoff family. I have not heard news on how the housekeepers lawsuit against shelli azoff has been going for a while.
When I hear that it’s cheaper to fly to Europe to go to a Taylor Swift concert then go to one in your own country? D.C., we have a problem.
Raises Hand – yup – leaving the US to see Tay this summer. No regrets US pricing is insane and I wasn’t spending 5 figures for my daughter and I….
i’m a bit old. no way am i paying 600 bucks to see anyone. in the uk that is royal ablert hall territory. 40bucks is my limit
I was at the first Eras Tour night in Paris. It was a long weekend in France so I spent 4 days in Paris as I’m from another part of France. There were Americans EVERYWHERE that weekend in Paris! I saw them in museums, at restaurants, having the full Parisian experience and let me tell you it isn’t cheap! But last week, I can’t remember if it was Rachel Maddow or Alex Wagner who reminded people of the Ticketmaster debacle and how it went up to 28,000 $ !!! My question is who, besides nepo babies and A-listers attended TS’´s shows in the US??!!
When Usher announced his tour, I made sure to get my tix immediately bc he was selling out the 1st leg pretty quickly.
The ticket itself was fine, about 85 dollars. It was the fees that put it over the top, which almost matched the price of the ticket.
The DOJ suing Ticketmaster/Live Nation needed to happen.
Although I’m not a rabid fan, I was going to see Justin Timberlake out of nostalgia. $400 for not great seats. I’d rather spend $27.50 for standing room only for any of the smaller acts that I love and who aren’t multi hundred millionaires.
It was always highway robbery and that’s why I rarely go to concerts. I’m going to see Usher in Sept, in the semi-nose bleeds for 200. Started off at 110 and then the fees. The fees are ridiculous.
I just waited in a queue to find out that US Open tickets were sold out. I clicked on the link at exactly 9am. But of course I can get reseller tix for 2X the face amount.
It’s like this for everything now. I don’t even try to get tickets anymore.
People are literally taking out loans in order to attend some of these concerts. I used to go concerts all the time back in the day. And now I look at ticket prices and I’m like “who can actually AFFORD these tickets??” There’s only one person I am willing to drop bank on to see live. And her name starts with B and ends in yonce’.
In 1978 or ‘79 I paid $6 for one ticket to see KISS (opening act AC/DC). Back then you had to go to the venue and wait in line to purchase a ticket. Next concert (Alice Cooper) was $6.50 in 1979 or ‘80. I attended about 2-3 concerts a year back then. I still have my ticket stubs.
My last ticket I purchased in 2023 through Ticketmaster was for Aerosmith. I paid $215 for one ticket in the nosebleed section. You can understand why I only attend 1 concert every year or two.
I’m with you Kat! In 1977, 1978 or 1979, 1982 we would pay $17.50 for all day (to the night) Summer Jams in Arrowhead Stadium. I saw bands like Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, The Cars, Heart, Steve Miller Band, REO Speedwagon, Nazareth, Ted Nugent, I even saw online a copy of ticket stub from 1975 for $10.00 in Kansas City, MO for The Rolling Stones and The Eagles with Rufus (Chaka Khan) opening. It seems unreal now.
I spent $150 to see Ricky Martin in concert in 1998. I was literally in the third row, 4 seats from the middle.
There is NO WAY I would pay for a concert and end up in the nosebleeds. For that, I might as well just buy powerful AF speakers, a giant tv, order in some sushi and sake and watch the show on YouTube — and STILL end up saving money.
I’m in NJ, and very lucky to still have a number of independent venues within an hour. I generally prefer smaller acts anyway, and I go to a show every couple of months, usually $100 or below, and the shows are almost always sold out or close. People do still want to go see live music and theater and events, but wow, no one should have to fork over hundreds or even thousands to do so. The system is so broken.
I love the Dandy Warhols, and I am lucky enough to live in their hometown of Portland, Oregon. Although they usually spend the summer touring Europe and winter in Australia, they usually do a big Christmas show at one of the local venues. They keep ticket prices low (Around $30), and I so appreciate it.
The Black Keys just cancelled their latest arena tour too and are planning to reschedule in smaller venues. I think they may have overestimated their popularity, but I’m sure price-gouging plays a part too. Who wants to pay hundreds of dollars to see someone in an arena? If anything, it seems like it should be the other way around with the more intimate venues charging the higher prices.
But to me $60 is about my limit for someone I really, really want to see. There is just too much good, live music for cheap or free to justify these insane prices.
The last concert I went to was Iron Maiden back in 2019. The way ticket pricing is going, that may be my last concert. Could I afford to go to them? Yes. Will I? No, because I am not willing to support a company that is ripping everyone off. No one is worth that kind of money to see, no one.
I am not doing it unless the artist in question personally comes and massages my back or something. $5,000 to see Beyonce? Nope.
Well, I guess Madonna is having the last laugh (lawsuits and all) when it comes to her highly successful Celebration Tour which ended with a historic free concert in Brazile with 1.6 million attendees. It’s reported that the concert injected an estimated 57-60 million dollars into the local economy. The concert was replayed again on Brazilian TV the following week at 10:30 pm, extending the celebration and economic windfall of the concert. According to Billboard.com (May 4, 2024):
“Madonna played the final shows of The Celebration Tour, closing her six-month trek with $225.4 million and 1.1 million tickets sold over 80 shows, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
The Celebration Tour is Madonna’s sixth trek to gross more than $100 million. The only other acts to achieve this are the Eagles, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and U2, making her the sole woman in this elite group.”
It’s Madonna. You can’t compare JLo, Timberlake et al. with Madonna. The only comparable artist would have been Michael Jackson or Prince.
Justin Timberlake’s “Forget Tomorrow” tour??? What a pretentious ass.
I know lots of people here love to hate on him, but that tour is selling really well and with good reason – it’s an incredible show.
I’m so glad the Black Keys are going to reschedule for smaller venues. I was sort of shocked/disappointed when they announced they were playing an arena in my city. I just hope they don’t jack up the ticket prices too much to try to make up for less seats.
I went to many concerts in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Many! I calculate that a ticket then cost just about what I was earning in one or two hours as a secretary. There were plenty of options under $10.00 The most costly tickets might have been in the $50 range then, but there were plenty of financial options for people who had to pay less.
I suspect that there were many fewer and less greedy layers of financial transactions between me and the actual artist’s paycheck. Live music was affordable.
@Gubbinal, I’m glad to see your post! I’ve been thinking about you and wondering how you’re doing, since it’s been a while. You probably saw some amazing shows during that era. I used to spend all my disposable income on live music in the late 1990s/2000s and I miss it but I just can’t justify the expense these days. Sigh. I tell myself I don’t want to stay out that late anyway, lol.
Musician here just to say the other crazy thing is Ticketmaster + Live Nation control lots of the smaller venues, too! Like 2000 seaters. It’s already impossible to make a living from streaming as a smaller artist (talking like, 500,000 monthly listeners compared to about a billion for a Taylor or a Billie), so smaller artists had/have to tour to make money. Enter Ticketmaster + Live Nation who decided they were going to start taking “merch cuts” from the smaller bands, at smaller venues… for merch they had zero part in creating. They got called out and stopped doing that in 2023, only to charge these bands venue fees (again for like, 2000 capacity) up to $4000 a show (that’s the highest I’ve heard). For as much as these ticket prices are a problem (and I agree they are and that shows should be financially accessible for most folks!) the evils of this company go even further. I’m ALL FOR the breakup of this monopoly. Do Spotify next. 🙂
I’m claustrophobic and hate crowds of people…so I’m good thanks. I watched T-Swifts Eras Tour on streaming twice….and thoroughly enjoyed it for $20 bucks in my pajamas with my cats. Oh, I’m 66. 🙂
Same, big thanks to the Swifties that live streamed the Paris shows on YouTube. That was good enough for me.
My girlfriend just tried to book George Straight and Christ Stapleton in Vegas for November. First, two tickets are $700 and THEN taxes, fees, SERVICE CHARGE for each ticket was $500. What in the world?????? Obviously she is not going but damn! Completely out of control.
I only pay top dollar for Tay Tay. Everyone else needs a bit of a reality check.
I’m honestly embarrassed at how much I spent for Shakira tickets. I justified it because she hasn’t toured in a decade and it’s a bucket list show for me.
She’s worth it! I’ve seen her twice and she sings live and dances non-stop for all her shows. I adore her.
Wanted to see Thievery Corporation and tix were $1000+ I was like hard pass. Sat outside the outdoor venue and heard the show for free ….
I work for a large venture in my hometown that holds concerts and festivals all throughout the summer. This Saturday, in fact. I am bartending VIP for Maggie Rogers and when I went online to look at tickets for my sister and I to go see NKOTB in August I was shocked. It’s 50 bucks a ticket just to stand on the grass outside the venue, 89 + for nosebleed seats and I bartend at these concerts and even I wouldn’t pay that price
The 23 May Office of Public Affairs press release “Justice Department Sues Live Nation-Ticketmaster for Monopolizing Markets Across the Live Concert Industry” is a great read. Sums up a lot of the issues the commenters here are talking about and outlines what your Justice Department is trying to do about it.
If successful, you guys should be enjoying lower ticket prices in the future.