Ignacio Vasquez spent the last year saving money for tickets to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour, which will kick off next month. Mr. Vasquez, 20, a full-time student from Modesto, Calif., was on the lookout for tickets to one of the tour’s five shows at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles for him and his sister.
“I went to go see Beyoncé on the Renaissance tour, and since I knew this was coming up, I knew I had to be saving,” Mr. Vasquez said.
On Feb. 11, Mr. Vasquez got on Ticketmaster’s online queue for the BeyHive presale, offered exclusively to those who signed up on Beyoncé’s website. After waiting his turn, Mr. Vasquez was surprised to see tickets listed at a minimum of $600 each and many at more than $1,000.
“The prices were just outrageous by the time I got in there,” Mr. Vasquez said. “I was like, ‘Oh, no, this is not going to work — I’m not going to do that,’ so I just quit it.”
In recent years, concertgoers have paid eye-popping prices for tickets to see popular artists like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Oasis on tour. But Gen Z fans — those born between 1997 and 2012 — are paying much more for concert tickets than previous generations did when they were young adults. In 1996, the average ticket price for the top 100 tours was $25.81, or about $52 adjusted for inflation, according to data compiled by Pollstar, a trade publication that covers the live music industry. By 2024, average ticket prices had risen to $135.92. The live music industry has put today’s young adults in an impossibly expensive position.
For Gen Z, spending on concerts can be budget busters. In a survey of 1,000 Gen Z respondents published last year by Merge, a marketing agency, 86 percent admitted to overspending on live events. Fear of missing out, or FOMO, was cited as a top reason. Another survey by AAA, the automobile owners group, and Bread Financial, a financial services company, found that Gen Z and millennials were willing to spend more and travel farther to attend live events than older generations are.
Last year, Chricket Cho, 25, attended seven concerts in the United States and Canada: Ms. Swift in Toronto, Bleachers in New York City and Nashville, Gracie Abrams in New York City, and Sabrina Carpenter, Maggie Rogers and Chappell Roan in Atlanta. She spent $8,400 on tickets, merchandise and travel for the shows.
“I just feel like live music is something that makes me feel alive,” said Ms. Cho, an information technology auditor who lives in Suwanee, Ga., and earns about $100,000 annually. “It’s a moment in time that is different than just listening to music on Spotify or on my record player.”
The most money Ms. Cho spent for a single show was to see Ms. Swift at the Rogers Center in Toronto. She purchased her ticket on Ticketmaster for $600, paid $3,000 for travel and accommodations, and spent $470 on merchandise.
Ms. Cho said she didn’t have a price cap for buying concert tickets. But she said soaring ticket prices had made her reconsider going to concerts if the artists weren’t her “all-time favorites” like Ms. Swift or Bleachers, the rock band fronted by Jack Antonoff.
Skyrocketing Concert Ticket Prices
About 50 years ago, fans of Bruce Springsteen paid as little as $8, or $44 adjusted for inflation, to see him perform on his Born to Run tour. Costs rapidly rose over the next few decades.
“The price of the average concert ticket increased by nearly 400 percent from 1981 to 2012, much faster than the 150 percent rise in overall consumer price inflation,” Alan B. Krueger said in an address at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, when he was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
After people were cooped up inside during the Covid-19 pandemic, attendance at concerts and other large gatherings resurged as audiences craved more in-person experiences. In 2023, the top 100 tours around the world brought in a record-breaking $9.2 billion, up 65 percent from 2019, according to data from Pollstar.
This increased demand, mixed with limited seats, high service fees and loose regulations (and an ongoing antitrust lawsuit) over how tickets are bought and sold, has resulted in a global surge in concert ticket prices.
On Ms. Swift’s popular Eras Tour, which grossed a record $2 billion, the average ticket price was $1,088 in 2023.
Demand-driven dynamic pricing systems put into place by ticket sellers have also resulted in higher prices. But this did not come into play when Mr. Vasquez tried to buy tickets for Beyoncé’s tour.
The day after Mr. Vasquez’s failed purchase attempt, he was able to buy tickets for $200 each through a Ticketmaster presale that was available only to Citi credit and debit card holders.
“Within just one day, the prices dropped drastically, and I know people who bought them on the first day, so it’s crazy,” Mr. Vasquez said.
According to Ticketmaster, prices for the shows at SoFi Stadium did not change. The tour had set ticket prices between $105.25 and $4,769.52, including service fees and the cheaper seats were available when Mr. Vasquez bought them through the Citi presale.
“Tickets were priced in advance of the sale and set at the individual seat level,” a Ticketmaster spokesperson said. “Ticketmaster does not have surge pricing or dynamic algorithms to adjust ticket prices.”
Blown Budgets
Abbas Tayebali lives in Westmont, Ill., and makes about $28,000 a year working two part-time jobs, one as a clerical worker in an academic office and the other as an events coordinator for a photo booth rental company.
In 2024, Mr. Tayebali saw two concerts at the Chicago Theater, Laufey and Samara Joy. For Laufey, he paid $300 for one ticket through an online reseller charging more than face value.
“Looking back, I probably would have been OK not spending that much for the ticket, especially for where I was seated,” said Mr. Tayebali, 26. “If I had to go back and shake myself and be like ‘Don’t purchase these tickets,’ I would probably do that.”
Mr. Tayebali said he had gone into credit card debt from buying concert tickets but would never pay more than $500 for one ticket.
“Concert-going used to be accessible and a fun way to end the evening,” he said.
He is saving money to buy a ticket to see Beyoncé but is attending smaller, more affordable shows in the meantime.
Yazmin Nevarez, a customer service lead at a Home Depot in Chicago who earns $51,000 a year, said going to concerts was “a luxury at this point.” She is focusing on seeing only artists she truly loves.
In August, Ms. Nevarez, 24, will travel to see Bad Bunny at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan. She bought her ticket for $80 through Ticketera, a platform for events in Puerto Rico, and paid about $300 for airfare. Bad Bunny, she said, works hard to preserve Puerto Rican culture, so she thinks the concert will be special.
Ms. Nevarez plans to stay with family for most of her trip. But she rented an Airbnb the night of the concert, costing $200, which she will split with friends and family who are also attending the concert.
“Especially with me being Puerto Rican and going somewhere that my family is from and a place that we visited every other summer, I feel like that would be something to prioritize,” Ms. Nevarez said about the concert.
Allison Santa, 27, is a business development associate for a solar energy company and a part-time Pilates instructor in Chicago who makes $80,000 a year. Last year, she saw 10 concerts in Chicago, at both small and large venues. She estimates she spent $1,000 on tickets for all 10 shows, which includes losing more than $400 in a scam for tickets to a Chappell Roan concert she saw through an Instagram ad.
“Everyone and their mother in Chicago were trying to get tickets,” she said. “It was crazy.”
Ms. Santa said she had gone into credit card debt from buying concert tickets. In the future, she said, she will buy tickets only through Ticketmaster and other verified third-party vendors. She has decided that spending on travel would be a better use of her money than expensive concerts.
“I probably could’ve flown back and forth to visit my family two to four times with the money I was scammed from the Chappell tickets,” Ms. Santa said.
Still, she paid $326 to see Charli XCX next month on the last leg of her Brat Tour in Rosemont, Ill., and said she hoped to buy a ticket to see Beyoncé “without breaking the bank.”
