EGN NEWS DESK
For the live performance enterprise, 2023 was a champagne-popping 12 months. The worst of the pandemic comfortably within the rearview, reveals massive and small have been promoting out, with mega-tours by Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Drake and Bruce Springsteen pushing the business to file ticket gross sales.
This 12 months, as with a lot of the economic system, success on the street appears extra fragile. A string of high-profile cancellations, and gradual gross sales for some main occasions, have raised questions on an overcrowded market and whether or not ticket costs have merely gotten too costly.
Most conspicuously, Jennifer Lopez and the Black Keys have canceled total area excursions. In the case of the Black Keys — a standby of rock radio and a well-liked touring draw for almost 20 years — the fallout has been extreme sufficient that the band has parted methods with its two managers, the business large Irving Azoff and Steve Moir. Through a consultant, Azoff and Moir mentioned they’d “amicably parted” with the band.
At Coachella, often so buzzy that it sells out properly earlier than any performers are introduced, tickets for the second of the California competition’s two weekends have been nonetheless obtainable by the point it opened in April.
Those points have stoked headlines a couple of live performance enterprise which may be in hassle. But the fact, many insiders say, is extra complicated, with no easy clarification for issues on a variety of excursions, and a enterprise which may be leveling out after a few extraordinary years when followers rushed to reveals after Covid-19 shutdowns.
“I feel it’s normalized again to the pre-Covid period,” mentioned Rich Schaefer, the president of world touring at AEG, the corporate behind excursions by Swift and the Rolling Stones. “Hot acts are going to promote tickets. Middle acts are going to promote, however take longer. And acts that don’t have loads of warmth on them are going to battle.”
In an announcement, Live Nation mentioned that to this point this 12 months, gross sales are up from the identical level in 2023, with over 100 million tickets bought. “Every 12 months,” the corporate mentioned, “some occasions naturally fall off for numerous causes, and in 2024 throughout all venue varieties we’ve seen a 4 p.c cancellation price — which is flat to final 12 months.”
In addition to Swift’s Eras Tour, which continues to be a phenomenon in Europe, sizzling occasions this 12 months embody excursions by Olivia Rodrigo, Coldplay, Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan. Other festivals, like Lollapalooza in Chicago, have had notably robust gross sales.
Still, distinguished cancellations of high-priced reveals is one other potential P.R. headache for Live Nation, the proprietor of Ticketmaster, which final month was sued by the Justice Department over accusations that it operates an unlawful monopoly that stifles competitors and leads to excessive costs and costs. Live Nation has denied these allegations.
The key fear all through the enterprise is that ticket costs, which have been rising steadily for years, could now be so excessive that they’re deterring followers from all however their once-in-a-lifetime, bucket-list reveals. Tickets, even for a lot of main excursions, now not vanish immediately.
When Billie Eilish put her newest area tour on sale in April, for instance, upper-deck seats at some venues have been going for over $200, and took weeks to promote.
A joint tour by the rapper Future and the producer Metro Boomin, who shared a pair of No. 1 albums and a chart-topping hit single earlier this 12 months, has additionally lagged. Even with tickets as little as $44.50, the opening-night live performance in Kansas City, Mo., in July, nonetheless has 1000’s of seats on the market in any respect ranges. To the chagrin of underperforming acts, the power or weak spot of gross sales is now evident in actual time on Ticketmaster, which shows blue dots for each unsold seat (and pink dots for ones being supplied for resale).
Last 12 months, the typical ticket worth for one of many high 100 excursions all over the world was $131, up 23 p.c from the 12 months earlier than, in response to Pollstar, a commerce publication that tracks live performance tickets.
Steve Martin of Paladin Artists, a reserving agent for traditional rock acts like David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, mentioned that beneath the extent of pop superstars like Swift, artists have turn into aware of the financial pressures going through their followers.
“The meat of the enterprise is made up of issues like basic rock packages,” Martin mentioned. “Those individuals are rather more worth delicate. Working-class individuals are involved about groceries and the value of fuel.”
No single clarification can cowl the vary of issues within the reside market this 12 months. Some excursions, just like the Black Keys’, could merely be a matter of the band overestimating demand.
In 2021, the Black Keys left their longtime manager for a brand new partnership with Azoff and Moir, who additionally work with John Mayer and the Grateful Dead spinoff Dead & Co., and the band later praised Azoff’s “give attention to touring and promoting our tickets.” But even after a brand new album — the band’s twelfth — was launched in April, live performance gross sales lagged, resulting in the cancellations and a housecleaning behind the scenes.
In a social media put up after the tour was deserted, the group mentioned it might “make some adjustments” to its touring plan to supply a extra “intimate expertise.” A consultant for the band’s label didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the administration adjustments.
Nostalgia alone is probably not sufficient to simply pack venues throughout the nation. Lopez, although nonetheless a film star and a tabloid characteristic, has not had a success track in a decade. Tickets to see the continuing area tour from Justin Timberlake have been obtainable on each the first and secondary markets, with costs on StubHub generally falling properly beneath face worth.
Fans exterior of high-demand markets like New York and Los Angeles don’t all the time have to rush the digital queue the second tickets go on sale. Some genres, like hip-hop, have a tendency to maneuver tickets extra slowly than others, however can nonetheless promote out earlier than showtime. The newest leg of Nicki Minaj’s tour, for instance, is a sea of blue dots.
Many components go into the value of the ticket, from the prices of fuel and crew salaries — which have risen because the pandemic — to bigger-picture economics amortized over the course of a whole tour. Global promoters like Live Nation and AEG usually supply artists a assured cost protecting all their reveals; an even bigger assure implies that costs should be larger to recoup that funding.
Dan Wall, Live Nation’s govt vice chairman of company and regulatory affairs, mentioned that whereas promoters could counsel pricing based mostly on a deal assure, “it’s the artist’s workforce that in the end decides ticket costs.”
Armchair evaluation of ticket gross sales has turn into one more factor of contemporary fandom to be memed and weaponized, upping the stakes. As business watchers on social media race to exhibit the dominance of their favorites, display grabs of obtainable seats for upcoming live shows have gone viral, resulting in media protection.
“I really feel like individuals on-line simply kind of realized which you can have a look at seat maps and see how reveals are doing,” mentioned Sam Hunt, an govt on the touring company Wasserman Music. “So I feel a part of it’s that perhaps not a ton has modified within the touring enterprise — not each swing is a house run — however individuals are paying extra consideration to it and having a sometimes internet-y response.”
Still, the notion amongst some music followers is that large-scale live shows are extra of a luxurious than they as soon as have been.
Cliff Russell, 39, mentioned in an interview that his two teenage daughters have been excited by seeing blockbuster excursions this 12 months from acts like Rodrigo, Drake, Eilish and Swift.
But after the household, residing exterior Toronto, spent massive for tickets to see Swift’s Eras Tour in November — with prices totaling close to $3,000 for 4 tickets, “not counting transportation, parking, souvenirs” — spending one other $300 per ticket for upper-deck seats to see one other pop star simply wasn’t within the playing cards.
“What was as soon as a holy grail ticket worth is now the typical,” Russell mentioned. “You’ve obtained to be actually choosy and picky.”
