Have Ticket Prices Finally Gotten Too High? As Artists Pull Major Tours, Experts Say Problems Run Deeper
As Post Malone, Zayn, Pussycat Dolls and more cancel or postpone their tours, experts say elevated ticket prices and market competition are creating problems.
Black News 
For tour and production manager Kimberly Curry, the last year has been the slowest of the post-pandemic live music boom. Speaking with her friends and colleagues, she notices that work on the touring circuit is beginning to dry up, and positions, such as tour and merch managers, are being rolled into one.
“Last year it was a little up and down with tours canceling last minute or offers coming through, and last minute you don’t hear back from them,” Curry says. “I think it has to do with the overselling of tickets and pricing people out. I don’t know for a fact that that’s why it’s happening, but it just seems to be a little bit coincidental.”
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Over the last several weeks, Post Malone, Zayn, Kid Cudi, Pussycat Dolls and Meghan Trainor made headlines with their canceled shows, and even major festivals like Stagecoach didn’t sell out.
After years of rising prices spurred by the rush back to in-person events post-pandemic, and with tickets to major tours regularly averaging three figures, the question began to arise: Have ticket prices finally gotten too high?
“Buyers are getting more educated,” Sara Mertz, vp of music partnerships at Tixr, tells Billboard. “Artists are impacted by high touring costs, and buyers are also dealing with high gas prices. And 100%, I do think a correction is coming.”
Billboard Boxscore data shows that in 2019, the average ticket price was $98.64; by 2024, that had jumped to $130.36, a 32.3% increase over five years. While the average price in 2025 dropped to $127.17, Billboard’s year-end touring report showed a plateau in ticket sales revenue.
Now, after several of the highest-grossing touring years to date saw major runs by Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Coldplay, Oasis, Bad Bunny and Beyoncé set high water marks, some experts are beginning to see pushback from fans.
“It’s hard to think that ticket prices aren’t playing at least some role in everything,” says John Chavez, an agent at Ground Control Touring. “It’s clear that it’s much more expensive to go to a concert, especially when you’re getting to 2,000-cap-and-above-sized venues, the arenas and theaters and sheds of the world. It’s a lot more expensive to do that than it once was.”
Another factor is timing. Over the last several years, secondary markets have seen a pattern of fans purchasing tickets closer to the date of a show than during an onsale, and sources tell Billboard the trend is becoming more common in larger markets like New York City. That can lead to panic among artists, who are more used to major tours selling out earlier and lose confidence when sales are slow leading up to the actual dates.
“One of the largest changes in the last year, which I think is a direct reflection of the economy, is these large sweeping [discounted] sales that go on at Live Nation and AEG,” says Marshall Betts, managing partner at independent booking agency TBA. “Usually, I would say those were reflections of poor-selling shows. These days, I have seen those discounts be very well-received amongst ticket buyers, which goes to show me people are aware of those things now and they’re waiting for it to be cheaper to buy as opposed to the onsale. And I have seen, generally, that people are buying tickets more at a later juncture when they can see if they can afford it for a certain night.”
Mertz says she’s also seen a steady decline in fans purchasing tickets during a show’s onsale over the last few years.
“Fans are waiting to buy, and they’re ordering protection and ticket insurance, so it shows an uncertainty there,” she says. “I also think the onsale experience with all the big shows — it’s hard to get a ticket, and it’s been a negative experience for a long time for fans.”
Last year, Post Malone’s Big Ass Stadium Tour landed at No. 8 on Billboard’s Year-End Top 100 Tours chart with 1.6 million tickets sold, grossing $231.2 million across 51 shows. But its second leg was postponed to allow Post to finish new music; on social media, he wrote, “I came to the realization that what we’re trying to do, and what’s possible, isn’t really lining up.”
However, fans noted that numerous seats were still available for purchase on the run, and those options came with a steep ticket price: Tickets range from $60 nosebleeds at select venues to $2,471 on the floor. Sources tell Billboard that one factor in the slower sales was that he had played a massive tour that hit major markets just last summer with successful dates in Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, New York City, Miami and San Francisco — and Jelly Roll had also joined on all those dates. He also headlined Coachella in 2025 and Stagecoach in 2026.
“Now, I find it more and more rare that bands get multiple loops on the same record, because the attention economy moves so quickly that you get a tour on your record, and then that’s done,” Chavez says. “And, even in some cases, the record is not a compelling hook for the tour in the first place.”
During Live Nation’s Q1 earnings call on May 5, Live Nation president Joe Berchtold commented on the recent wave of cancellations and stated that the trend is no different from what’s been seen in previous years.
“We always have a few cancellations,” Berchtold said. “We tend to have a 1%-2% cancellation rate historically, both at Ticketmaster, across the industry and at Live Nation. We’re tracking slightly below the industry, so we see no challenges at all in that. To give perspective, we have about 15,000 shows on sale, and 100 will be canceled. That would be typical.”
Kid Cudi was more transparent with why his date at Coca-Cola Amphitheater in Birmingham, Ala., was pulled, writing on his Instagram story that “the ticket sales just weren’t strong enough.”
After the Pussycat Dolls announced an arena tour, fans noticed many seats were still available before the group canceled the run. Zayn was another case of an artist pulling an arena tour, with Ticketmaster showing seats were still available. Some say that issue could be remedied by dropping down room sizes.
“We would love for more artists to consider playing multiple nights at some smaller venues versus going the arena route,” says Stephen Parker, executive director of the National Independent Venue Association.
While ticket prices are high (and the recent Live Nation antitrust lawsuit saw a jury saying fans overpaid by an average of $1.72 per ticket), much of that cost stems from supply-chain issues that never truly resolved after the pandemic.
“I remember the first time I put on a show with a $20 ticket, I thought it was nuts,” Chavez says. “Now, if I do any less than a $20 ticket, the math doesn’t math. A band will walk out of the room with $500 after a sold-out show, and it costs more than that to drive to the next town.”
In 2022, a wave of concert cancellations stemmed from supply chain disruptions and high touring costs. (Jack White’s 2022 trek was even titled The Supply Chain Issues Tour.) Despite the cancellations, 2022’s total ticket gross hit $6.4 billion, an increase of 30.6% from 2019’s total gross of $4.9 billion. However, most of that success was seen within the top tours, and the high costs stemming from the supply chain disruptions — and fewer buses and trucks being available for tours, both due to high demand with so many acts on the road, and from a limited fleet after many retired during the pandemic — led to an increase in ticket prices. As fuel prices rise due to the ongoing conflict in Iran, touring is only expected to get more expensive.
“We have an income inequality problem,” Mertz says. “There are fans that can afford the whole 10 yards with their experience, and there is a growing number of people that are having a harder time. Flexibility is important.”
Over the years, a trend of immense success among the highest-grossing acts has differed from what the middle class of touring has experienced. Smaller artists have long been unable to afford a bus tour after fleets were sold off and drivers found other jobs during COVID, instead relying on fly dates for the majority of their shows.
“I feel like we had a big boom in tours back in 2021, 2022 and the first half of ’23,” Chavez says. “By fall ’23, we started to see things correct, and it became very clear the buying patterns for fans had shifted over COVID… it was very hard to get fans to commit to following you up to that higher ticket price.”
Finding the best ticketing price point for shows to ensure artists are able to break even on a tour — if not make a profit — while also listening to fans and what they’re willing to pay isn’t an exact science. Sources at major agencies say they collaborate across departments, sharing what fans in various markets are willing to pay, and adjust prices if they see a show isn’t selling as well as they’d hoped.
“We talk through projected costs through an entire run and tweak things in a certain way,” Betts says. “It may be below what they need to make a profit on a tour, so perhaps we add a show or two. Or, perhaps we need to subtract a show or two because of health concerns or things of that nature, which goes into a budget, so we need to bump the ticket price up $1-$2 to help offset things here or there. That’s how most of it works.”
As touring costs skyrocket, the days of cheap concert tickets may be over.
“When I started booking shows here, gas was $2 a gallon and it was $50 to stay at a Motel 6,” Chavez says. “You could get from place to place for $150, and that is not possible anymore.”
