A series of tour cancellations and changes by big-name artists has sparked questions about whether the post-pandemic live music boom could be cooling, as consumer spending fatigue meets elevated ticket prices.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Jennifer Lopez announced she was canceling her 2024 tour, citing a desire to spend more time with her family. Meanwhile, the Black Keys announced they were abandoning a stadium tour in favor of a series of shows at smaller venues.<\/p>\n
Both tours had recently become the subject of social media fodder, namely screenshots showing empty venues at select tour dates. (NBC News could could not directly verify their authenticity.)<\/p>\n
Indeed, some of the evidence of a slowdown is anecdotal. SeatGeek said in an email that the average resale ticket price to attend a summer concert is down to $213 from $257 around this time last year. The company suggested some of the decline could be attributed to the absence of megatours on par with Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cEras Tour\u201d and Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s \u201cRenaissance\u201d outings last year.<\/p>\n
For artists whose popularity has crescendoed, there appears to be plenty of demand \u2014\u00a0and high prices. The average resale price for Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s \u201cGuts\u201d tour is $571, and the next-highest is $409 to see Morgan Wallen, according to SeatGeek data first reported by Axios.<\/p>\n
Many of those tours are being sold through Ticketmaster and its parent Live Nation. And prior to facing landmark accusations that it is a monopoly, a claim it denies, Live Nation reported its biggest first quarter ever, with $3.8 billion in revenues. Its concerts business alone was up 26% to $2.9 billion, while \u201cestimated fans\u201d globally were up more than 20%, and up 42% in North America.<\/p>\n
Yet official government data points to the makings of a return to a more normal pace for live music event sales after a post-pandemic boom. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last month that movie and concert admissions prices climbed just 3.4% year over year through April, the lowest reading since 2021 and the second-consecutive month showing a slowdown.<\/p>\n
Dave Clark, editor of Ticket News, which tracks the live entertainment industry, said the period of explosive live music growth following pandemic reopenings may in hindsight be seen as an aberration: People were simply more eager \u2014\u00a0and more financially able \u2014 to go to as many shows as they could after months cooped up indoors.<\/p>\n
This year, Clark said, a reckoning may be emerging.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe days where there was enough demand to sell out arenas at top dollar just isn\u2019t there in this live events economy \u2014 outside of people like Taylor Swift who can sell whatever they want wherever they want,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
At a time when many consumers are struggling to pay for basic necessities, he said, \u201cpeople are seeing some of the prices they\u2019re asking and just saying, \u2018Hard pass.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Another factor may be a supply issue, Clark added: too many acts trying to tour at once, or too many times. In the pre-streaming era, bands would go on tour as a way of marketing an album. These days, he said, it\u2019s reversed, since the returns on recorded music have shrunk dramatically.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow they\u2019re making records to sell the tour,\u201d he said. \u201cThat paradigm has a lot to do with it. It\u2019s just a very overloaded market.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Black Keys did just release a new album, and its debut single hit No. 1 on Billboard\u2019s Alternative Airplay chart in March.<\/p>\n
Still, the rock duo announced it would cancel and reschedule its summer touring plans, switching from arenas to other venues that provide a more \u201cintimate experience,\u201d according to the band. The new dates have not yet been announced.<\/p>\n
The Black Keys aren\u2019t the only group that may be falling victim to costly concert fatigue.<\/p>\n
Pop-rock band 311 announced it had canceled upcoming European tour dates due to the \u201crising costs of touring overseas,\u201d which made completing certain portions of the tour \u201cunfeasible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other stars including Pink and Justin Timberlake have also recently canceled specific show dates, while the Jonas Brothers recently postponed their upcoming European tour, though none officially cited financial concerns as reasons for doing so.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think with all that competition for fan dollars, it was obviously natural that some artists were going to lose,\u201d said Bill Werde, director of the Syracuse University Bandier Program for Recording and Entertainment Industries.<\/p>\n
There are still plenty of large-scale tours planned for this summer that, so far, appear to be unaffected by flagging demand. Hootie & the Blowfish have 48 dates booked this year, while Dave Matthews Band is slated for 34. Other top acts hitting the road include Maroon 5, Zac Brown Band, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kenny Chesney and Chris Stapleton.<\/p>\n
But experts say recent economic trends in the live-music industry, especially the type of consolidation the Justice Department is now targeting, have translated into fewer smaller-sized venues.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s made it more difficult for a given tour date to make financial sense for the artist, venue and promoter.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome shows, they can\u2019t afford to drop prices; they can\u2019t afford to wait to try to sell out the rest of the building,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n
If there is uncertainty about all stakeholders being able to at least break even, he said, the show might get canceled.<\/p>\n
Such realities have collided with a more circumspect concertgoer. Brittney D\u2019Mello, a 23-year-old K-pop fan from New Jersey who works in corporate marketing, posted to X about her frustrations with the current touring landscape.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tickets are too expensive,\u201d D\u2019Mello said. \u201cThere\u2019s only a SMALL amount of people (10%) that will spend $500+ on vip\/floor\/premium,\u201d she said. \u201cThe rest of us have budgets and won\u2019t spend $100 on nosebleeds,\u201d she said, referring to seats that are typically the farthest away from the stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is touring this year \u2026 and we only have money for 2-3 concerts MAX,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
In a follow-up interview with NBC News, D\u2019Mello said she simply decided to cap her concert budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will only go see two artists that are my tried-and-true favorite artists,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I won\u2019t be casually going to concerts anymore. And after going to concerts twice, I think that\u2019s where I stop.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A series of tour cancellations and changes by big-name artists has sparked questions about whether the post-pandemic live music boom could be cooling, as consumer spending fatigue meets elevated ticket prices. On Friday, Jennifer Lopez announced she was canceling her 2024 tour, citing a desire to spend more time with her family. Meanwhile, the Black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}