The CEO of Live Nation has claimed that music concerts are “underpriced”.
The company’s CEO Michael Rapino made the comments when speaking last week at the CNBC and Boardroom’s Game Plan conference, and said that gig tickets has been “underpriced” for “a long time”.
He compared getting tickets to huge tour dates to that of getting tickets to sports games, saying (via Rolling Stone): “Music has been under-appreciated… In sports, I joke it’s like a badge of honour to spend 70 grand for a Knicks courtside [seat]. They beat me up if we charge $800 for Beyoncé.”
He continued: “We have a lot of runway left. So when you read about ticket prices going up, the average concert price is still $72 (£53). Try going to a Laker game for that, and there’s 80 of them. The concert is underpriced and has been for a long time.”
It isn’t quite clear how Rapino reached that figure for the average concert price, although live-entertainment trade publication Pollstar did break down some similar figures in its report for the end of 2024.
Here, it reported that the average ticket price for a stadium show in the US was $128.64. For an arena it said the figure was $98.78 (£73), an amphitheatre was $70.72 (£52), a theatre was $75.09 (£55), and a club came in at $43.95 (£32). The average of those shows brings the ticket average to roughly $83 (£61).
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Also in his appearance at the conference, Rapino did acknowledge how “the cost has gone up” for tickets in recent years, and said that this comes as a result of the “investment in the experience.”
Discussing how stage productions have reached a bigger scale in recent years – as seen in Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras’ tour, Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ dates and more – he said that rising prices may come as a result.
Saying how Beyoncé allegedly had “62 transport trucks” on her latest tour, he shared: “That’s a Super Bowl she’s putting on every night. 10 years ago, there might’ve been 10 trucks.”
“[Artists] are forfeiting margin for the experience,” he added. “You hear about these $100 million grosses, that artist, depending on the show, might only take home 30 per cent of that, spending 70 on the show.”
There are many other factors that contribute to the high prices of shows too, though. Prices for travel, insurance and more have risen and are making it harder for many artists and their crew to head out on tour, there are large fees and additional charges on those buying tickets, and there are still continuous issues with scalpers despite efforts to crack down on it.
The use of dynamic pricing has sparked widespread backlash too, and this was highlighted particularly after the tickets for Oasis’ Live ‘25 tour dates went on sale last year.
It was recently confirmed that US regulators are suing Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, over alleged “illegal” tactics when reselling tickets.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with seven states, alleged that the entertainment giant coordinated with brokers to purchase gig tickets and sell them at a “substantial” markup. This, they alleged, violated consumer protection law and led to the companies profiting from large resale fees.
Ticketmaster and Live Nation have not yet responded to the FTC’s allegations, but earlier this year Andrew Parsons – the Managing Director at Ticketmaster UK – told MPs he believed that tickets were “very fairly priced”.
Last year, the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation over its alleged behaviour of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the live music industry. A judge has since rejected Live Nation’s bid to dismiss the antitrust allegations, which the company has called “absurd”.
Efforts to crack down on high prices and touts were made in the UK at the start of the year, when the UK government has announced that there would be a price cap on how much touts can re-sell tickets for, as well as an official consultation into the industry and controversial ‘dynamic pricing’ practices.
Speaking to NME about the news, the Minister of State for Data Protection and Telecoms Sir Chris Bryant MP said that this price cap wasn’t up for debate – but it was “now just a matter of how the government takes action”.
“The key thing here is transparency and fairness in the system. It’s a perfectly good argument that if you have this heightened anxiety deliberately created by the system, then you see your ticket prices going up by hundreds – is that a fair system? We’re asking people what we should do about that,” he shared.
“I’m a music fan and I go to loads of gigs, and quite often it’s pretty straightforward. I want to make it fair for fans, and for artists too. I don’t want them to be in a situation where whatever system they go with will mean they’ve got it wrong.”
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