Music fans won't get a break on concert ticket prices in 2024, according to experts

When the World Health Organization ended the global COVID-19 emergency nearly a year ago, 2023 became the first official post-pandemic year for concerts. With a number of artists' tours in full swing, ticket prices for shows to see Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Drake soared, ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars. 

In August, when Swift announced Canadian dates for her Eras tour, prices for tickets in the upper bowl of Toronto's Rogers Centre ranged from $160 to $200, according to the Toronto Star. Resale prices for the stadium shows are much higher, with companies such as StubHub now selling upper bowl seats for upwards of $2,000.

For floor tickets to Beyoncé's Formation tour at the Rogers Centre in 2016, the resale price was around $330. But seven years and a pandemic later, for a floor seat in the same venue during her Renaissance tour stops, the resale cost was more than $1,000. 

This year, music fans can expect similarly high pricing for shows from established artists.

Inflation, pent-up demand factor into higher costs

"Ticket prices are no exception when it comes to [the] inflation that we're seeing," said Trevin Stratton, an economic advisory leader at Deloitte Canada. 

Canada's annual inflation rate came in at 3.1 per cent in November 2023, with high mortgage interest rates and rent costs being two of the major contributors. In December, it rose to 3.4 per cent. By comparison, in 2019, Canada's annual inflation rate was 1.9 per cent, and the average price of concert tickets has risen by 17.8 per cent since then, according to a 2022 Pollstar report.

"Considering the fact that households are feeling the pinch of higher interest rates, I think it's more likely that [consumers] are picking and choosing to spend on experiences at the expense of another category of spending," said RBC economist Carrie Freestone. "Canadians are very obviously still willing to spend on entertainment," she said, adding that they might "pull back" in other areas to put money aside for events such as concerts. 

"Canadians have been, since lockdowns were lifted, prioritizing discretionary service sector spending and obviously events and concert tickets fall into that," she said. "And, when you see things like very expensive concert tickets all selling out immediately, you know, there's that pent-up demand."

That demand has put a "kind of upward pressure on concert prices" that has not yet subsided, Stratton said.

Trucking costs, fuel costs are up, venue costs are up. Everything is more expensive than it's ever been.- Paul Biro

"There are a lot of artists that were unable to tour during the pandemic as well, and they all wanted to start touring again at the same time," he said. "But of course, there was limited venue space, at least in large arenas and stadiums, and so that caused prices to go up as well in terms of venues [experiencing] higher demand for artists to use their spaces. And so they were able to charge higher prices because of that, too."

Paul Biro is the president and operating partner of Sakamoto Agency, a company that does booking, promotion and artist representation in Canada. He said he does not think that high-end ticket prices will drop this year because live shows generate more engagement with artists' music than any other method. 

"So, the more people they can get in front of, the better, and ticket prices relate to that," he said. "I think that you're going to see the bigger artists that have the ability to sell, maximize their revenue return [because they're] still trying to make up for [their] loss during COVID."

"We can't believe how much, post-COVID, our production costs are," Biro said. "Trucking costs, fuel costs are up, venue costs are up. Everything is more expensive than it's ever been."

Aaron Goodvin, a Juno-nominated country singer on Sakamoto's roster, said that current ticket prices are reflective of a higher cost of living. Before the pandemic, a tour bus could be rented for around $1,500 a day. Now, he says, the cost is closer to $2,500, meaning ticket prices have to be higher, too. "So, then what ends up happening is we have to jack the ticket prices just to get a guarantee that there's a good enough [profit] for us to make it worthwhile."

Stratton said artists typically need to fill at least 80 per cent of a venue to break even, which means "sometimes their hands are tied in terms of how low they can actually charge for tickets."

Goodvin adds that ticket prices are also reflective of paying touring band members and crew properly. "I think the hardest part of it is, it's not just me."

Biro said that ultimately, artists set the ticket prices, and the total cost of a concert ticket can be broken down as follows: the artist (and by extension, their crew, dancers, etc.) takes a cut; the venue takes a cut; and the promoter takes a cut. For an established artist, the standard for a promoter to take is 10 per cent, which Biro said is only a small portion of the overall ticket price.

"So, really, sometimes on some of these big shows, our take-home as promoters isn't outrageously huge either," Biro adds. "And it's a lot of work to put on one show, let alone a tour of 25 or 30 dates. So I don't think that's where the money's going and I think that ticketing fees take up a lot of it."

Ticket fees and dynamic pricing also to blame

In 2019, the Canadian Competition Bureau penalized Ticketmaster, a subsidiary of Live Nation, the largest concert promoter in the world, after finding that the additional fees (including the service, order processing and delivery fees) often added more than 20 per cent — and in certain cases, more than 65 per cent — to the cost of a ticket compared to its advertised price.

In a November 2023 statement, Ticketmaster told CBC News that the company typically only keeps about five per cent of a ticket's overall value. In June of the same year, Ticketmaster announced it would be unveiling all-in pricing in the U.S., which displays all the fees upfront. The company has had all-in pricing in Canada since 2018.

The company also uses a dynamic pricing model under which ticket prices fluctuate based on demand. However, it's artists and their teams who decide if they want to use dynamic pricing for their ticket sales.

Some artists, such as Pearl Jam, Zach Bryan and the Cure, have been critical of the company's extra fees and dynamic pricing structure. Last March, the Cure's frontman, Robert Smith, called out Ticketmaster after finding out fans paid high fees on top of their original ticket price, after the band refused to use dynamic pricing and kept ticket prices as low as $20. Ticketmaster eventually refunded some of the fees.

"Overall demand for concerts and live events continues to soar," Ticketmaster told CBC Music in a statement. "While Ticketmaster does not set prices, we know that artists consistently price tickets to make them more accessible for fans — with the majority under $100 and only two per cent over $500. That's far below what scalpers are charging, as resale is commonly two times the original price."

Art and creativity should be for everybody, it shouldn't just be for those people that can see [a] show because they've got a lot of money.- Paul Biro

"In some ways, you know, people that are trying to buy tickets to go to a concert are competing with resellers to buy tickets when it comes to the initial release of tickets as well, and then those resellers are able to sell them at a higher price when it comes to dynamic pricing," Stratton said. "And that's obviously increasing demand for tickets and also changing the pricing structure for tickets as well, which is having an impact."

"At the end of the day, the artist makes a decision and artist management makes a decision: 'This is what we'll play for,'" Biro said. "And then it's presented to us as a promoter and we either do it or don't, and the reason why we don't sometimes is because we think that the asking price is so high, that the ticket price will have to be so high that the average consumer can't do it."

"Art and creativity should be for everybody," he added, "it shouldn't just be for those people that can see [a] show because they've got a lot of money."