Live music has experienced an explosive post-pandemic resurgence over the past few years as “revenge” fans eager to return to concert venues have paid big bucks for massive stadium tours such as Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour and Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” tour. »
But a recent spate of tour cancellations and changes involving big-name artists indicates that consumer appetite for live music may be slowing.
On Friday, Live Nation has announced that Jennifer Lopez is canceling her “This Is Me” project. . . Live” to spend more time with your familya week after “Black Keys” said they were canceling an arena tour planned for this fall in favor of smaller venues.even after the single from their new album topped Billboards Alternative Airplay chart in March.
The announcements are the latest signs that at least one aspect of the “fanflation” or post-pandemic economy (as consumers seeking to make up for lost experiences have increased demand for things like airline and concert tickets) isn’t all that great . strong as it was last year.
Jared Arfa, head of global music at touring agency Independent Artist Group, said he believes the current concert landscape is less a slowdown and more a return to a pre-pandemic atmosphere where “there are a lot of winners, but not everyone is winning.” “
“Transportation is catching up a little bit because there are still so many artists on the roads and people have already seen them,” Arfa said. Luck. “Some of those novelty factors no longer exist post-COVID.”
One obvious factor is consumer fatigue with inflated prices. Since the world emerged from pandemic-induced lockdowns, concert ticket prices have skyrocketed. According to music publication Pollstar.Between 2019 and 2023, the average ticket price for a Top 100 music tour grew at a rate well ahead of inflation, jumping from $91.18 to $122.84.
“There just haven’t been days in our live events economy where there was enough demand to sell out arenas for big bucks,” Dave Clark, editor of Entertainment Industry Tracker. Ticket newssaid in an interview with NBC News.
“People see some of the prices they’re asking and just say, ‘It’s hard to pass.’
Arfa also said that more artists are touring now than before, and not just because of the break during quarantine. This is largely due to the era of streaming, in which touring brings in much more income to artists than what they receive from streaming. But with fans’ time and wallets limited, this ultimately means a smaller piece of the pie for some artists.
“You have people who would normally be able to schedule their own tours. . . who are now returning,” Arfa said. “They might have had to take a couple of years off, but they got those COVID years.”
“Traffic is probably still a little higher than usual,” he added.
It’s not just tours that are bouncing back. The first weekend of Coachella, the highest-grossing festival in North America. hasn’t been on sale for almost a month. That’s much longer than 2023 or 2022, when both weekends sold out in about 40 minutes after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. On the opening day of the festival in 2024 Billboard reported that approximately 80% of the 250,000 tickets had been sold..
Ticketmaster has been among the biggest beneficiaries of the “revenge spending” phenomenon. Its parent company Live Nation reported its biggest year ever in 2023 before the Justice Department sued the company in May, alleging it violated antitrust laws. Following Taylor Swift and Beyoncé’s mega tours last year, the ticket giant reported a $10 billion increase in total revenueand concert attendance increased by 20%.
But there are early signs that growth may slow in 2024. Last week, Axios reported that summer concert ticket resale prices were down about 17% (or an average of $45 per ticket) compared to last year, citing Data from SeatGeek. In May, the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics reported that April movie and concert ticket prices were up 3.4% from last year.This is the lowest increase since 2021.
What’s more, on top of the Justice Department lawsuit, concert cancellations, and public outcry, Ticketmaster is also facing a data breach affecting millions of customers.
The biggest artists touring this summer—Olivia Rodrigo, Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan—are still in high demand. According to SeatGeek, the average resale price for Rodgrigo’s “Guts” tour is $571. Axios. But even that is a far cry from the astronomical resale prices of last summer’s Eras tour, which were in the thousands.
“At the megatour level, I think there might be a little less of that this year,” Arfa said. “Some artists just automatically quit every couple of years and think they’re bulletproof. But that’s not true. Not everyone can be Taylor and Beyoncé.”