- Text Izzi Sneider
- Design Jasmine Bae
Four years ago, COVID-19 muted live music worldwide. Longstanding, legendary venues were forced to close their doors for good, and musicians who relied heavily on the income that touring produced were stuck at home, wondering how they would continue to pay the bills. The silence was deafening for an industry that thrives on bringing people together.
Then something changed. As COVID restrictions lifted, young people desperate to compensate for lost time began flocking to live events like concerts and festivals in droves. In 2024, Taylor Swift shattered concert attendance records when she performed in front of 288,000 fans over three days at Melbourne’s Cricket Grounds. And it wasn’t just Taylor Swift; the top 100 tours of 2023 grossed more than $9 billion collectively, exceeding pre-COVID highest-grossing box office records by more than 50%. Companies like Live Nation and Ticketmaster reported that their ticket listings sold out at break-neck speeds. In just a few short years, it seemed that the live music industry had already rebounded, at least for some.
Other artists, however, aren’t seeing the same post-COVID payout. Just days after its announcement, Jennifer Lopez canceled her stadium tour due to poor ticket sales. The Black Keys, similarly, had to move their stadium tour dates to smaller theater venues. Even Bad Bunny had to cancel shows due to low sales. Despite the record-breaking box office sales fueled by the Swifties and the virality of artists like Charli xcx, images and videos of half-empty venues during artists' sets have flooded social media. The disparity between these two material conditions seems odd considering Gen Z’s apparent appetite for live music experiences, but economics tell a fuller story.
“A lot of people don’t [want to pay] for shows. It’s hard to justify paying more than [the cost of] a meal just to go to a concert.” says Kobe, a show promoter and performing musician based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
This is not to say that young people aren’t interested in live music. In fact, Gen Z is twice as likely to call out of work for a concert than Millennials and traversing to Europe to catch Taylor Swift or Beyoncé’s more affordable overseas tour dates has become an increasingly popular vacation plan. While it is true that many young people flock to these massive, expensive spectacles, the same demographic attend concerts less frequently during the year than show-goers of the past, often due to the financial constraints. For young people with limited disposable income, attendance is a matter of weighing the ticket cost against the quality of the experience.
My rule of thumb is to go to the show that you can anticipate won’t ever happen again. For example, some artists haven’t toured for YEARS and will come back out of the blue for a specialty tour versus artists who are in their prime touring every year
- Patty Lozada, Associate Creative Strategist at D1A and avid concert goer
When an artist with an especially devoted fanbase announces a rare stadium tour or headlines a festival, it can feel like a major cultural event is happening, making it feel like the money is being spent on a can’t miss event—even if budgetary concessions must be made.
According to the live music trade publication Pollstar, the average primary market ticket price of the top 100 music tours last year was $122.84. In 2019, this average was $91.86—a rise that outpaced inflation by a good margin. For reference, in 2000, the average ticket cost was just $40.74. As the average ticket price has skyrocketed, Gen Z has had to become more judicial about what events are worth attending.
Venue owners seem to believe that the rising ticket prices are Gen Z’s own doing. According to Billboard Pro, a portion of the ticket price increase stems from the fact that Gen Z people are spending less money at venues’ bars, and venues need to recoup the lost revenue somehow—often via ticket prices. Despite these claims, young people online argue that they aren’t drinking at concerts simply because they cannot afford a $16 Miller Lite.
On top of the soaring prices of tickets, attempting to acquire them at all can mean pandemonium. Fans can spend hours waiting in a virtual line to grab what tickets are available to outrun other fans and bots that are automated to purchase mass amounts of tickets to resell them. When a fan can’t get those tickets firsthand, they’re forced to buy them on resale sites, often owned by the same conglomerates that operate the primary market platforms, which are exponentially costlier than on the primary market. In 2023, fans were charged, on average, 203% of the primary market price. Companies like Ticketmaster and Live Nation know that fans are willing to shell out massive amounts of money to see their favorite artist and manipulate the process to make sure as many people as possible are overpaying for tickets. In 2019, Live Nation even admitted to keeping thousands of tickets for a Metallica tour from being sold at face value by putting them directly on resale sites, essentially cutting out the bot middleman and scalping their own tickets. While companies have created algorithmic processes to deter bot purchasers, these hurdles aren’t enough to eliminate the issues—why would they? These companies benefit from making primary market ticket purchases as tricky as possible.
@tashaleelyn my first eras tour!!!!!!!! 😭😭😭 finally!!!!! #erastourvancouver #taylornation #erastourtaylorswift ♬ original sound - tashaleelyn
With the soaring prices of tickets and the battle between fans and scalpers, it isn’t surprising that young people see show attendance as a special occasion. With a nationwide median income of $60,000, Gen Zers especially are forced to be more judicious about how they spend their money. Concerts become significant events that young people can afford to attend one or two times a year—a shift from how Millennials attended smaller, indie shows at more frequent rates than their predecessors. In a study conducted by LendingTree, 26% of people who plan on attending a concert this summer plan to take out debt to do so.
The result of mass-scalping and unaffordable prices becomes apparent when evidence of sold-out concerts with half-empty seating circulates social media like rows of open seating at sold-out Taylor Swift and The 1975 concerts over the past year. Regardless of the desire to see their favorite artist, there are clear limits to the amount of people who can afford to shell out the big bucks to purchase upcharged tickets.
At the same time, attending smaller, local concerts in order to scratch that live-music itch without breaking the bank is increasingly more difficult to do.
In Bushwick, Brooklyn—a neighborhood once dotted with vacant warehouses and empty lots that served as after-hours DIY clubs and venues—a vast ecosystem of conglomerate-owned large entertainment complexes and mega-venues has quickly developed, pushing out the smaller, independently run clubs that offered up-and-coming artists a stage to play on.
As corporations continue to buy up venues all around New York City, even seeing local bands can become expensive. At Brooklyn Monarch, a venue with a 1500-person capacity, general-admission tickets can be priced at upwards of $55 before added fees.
@xoxosmellyj I’D RATHER DIE ON MY FEET THAN LIVE ON MY KNEES!!!!!!! HAVE FUCKING HEART!!!! #hardcore #hardcoremusic #foryou #livemusic #brooklyn #newyork #haveheart ♬ original sound - melly🍒
Other cities around the United States have experienced similar growth. In Denver, the formerly industrial neighborhood known as the River North Art District has become a nightlife hub with the opening of developments like North Wynkoop, a sprawling complex stretching across three blocks that includes studios, concert halls and shopping, and welcomes 50,000 monthly visitors. AEG Presents, the operator of the Mission Ballroom, a venue located within North Wynkoop, is using the venue as a blueprint for projects in Atlanta, Boston, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham. Venues of this sort can cost up to $150 million to build, not including operation and maintenance costs.
Likely compounded by the exorbitant cost and time commitment required to get tickets, fans may also be deterred by the behavior displayed by others attendees. TikToker JasJustTalks is just one of many creators who went viral after posting a sarcastic video about the poor etiquette she witnesses at concerts. While other users have resorted to uploading tutorials depicting how (and how not) to act at live-music events.
Alexis Castro, a Creative Strategist at D1A and performing musician, has noticed that the crowd has become increasingly inconsiderate of other attendees as well.
People nowadays have a really bad sense of personal space and how to navigate crowds. I’ll be trying to go up the stairs at a venue, and someone will literally stop and do something on their phone on a crowded staircase, whether that’s to check a text or snap a photo of the crowd from above
- Alexis Castro, Creative Strategist at D1A and performing musician
Alexis isn’t alone in his observations. Phone usage has become a hot-button issue for concert-goers, sparking some artists to ask their fans to limit their cellphone use during sets. On the contrary, recording videos of a live set can have its benefits for both those looking for internet virality and those who can’t afford to attend. "Concert consumption," the act of viewing concerts through the phone screen rather than IRL, has become an increasingly popular alternative to actually attending the concerts, for better or for worse.
Despite this, young people are interested in finding ways to make the concert-going experience less straining.
“I would like to continue to see independent venues pop up and offer a different experience for fans and artists. Live music is all about the community and the real people involved, and sometimes, it just feels a little icky to be part of this very corporate system where payouts feel overly transactional. It feels like you’re paying an arm and a leg for the experience,” says Alexis.
Similarly, Kobe suggests that the live music industry should find ways to make shows less costly for the attendees. “I think if venues initiated more leniency, like sliding-scale [ticket prices] at the door, it definitely would help attendance.” For now, however, young people will have to continue to make tough decisions about how to spend their money.
Whether current venue owners are interested in making the experience more accessible in the short term is up for debate during a time when the industry is experiencing record growth. The fact that young people are looking for ways to change the industry, however, indicates a future shift, where entertainment becomes an activity that everybody can afford to participate in.
