The BeyHive and Swifties assembled last summer, fiending for tickets to experience two of the biggest tours of the decade. And they were willing to spend big.
This summer, it’s been a completely different story.
Artists such as Jennifer Lopez and the Black Keys have scrapped entire arena tours that were struggling to sell tickets. Now pop artists such as Charli XCX and Nicki Minaj are poised to play to half-empty arenas, despite their albums sparking viral memes over the past year.
Several multiday events such as the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival, Desert Dazeand the Skull & Roses Grateful Dead tribute festival have also been canceled due to financial difficulties, partially due to low ticket sales and the rising cost of creating such major productions. It seems the post-pandemic itch for live music has plateaued. But why?
People have stopped ‘revenge spending,’” Jordan Kurland, partner at Bay Area concert promoter Noise Pop and co-founder and partner at Brilliant Corners Artist Management, told the Chronicle, referring to the compulsion to splurge on in-person experiences to make up for opportunities lost during the COVID pandemic.
He added: “We’re still dealing with inflation, so everyday life is more expensive for people.”
Indeed, music lovers seem to be less willing to break the bank for a concert that might be anything less than extraordinary. “When tickets to a show cost more than a flight to Hawaii, it’s hard to justify,” said San Francisco resident and regular concertgoer Drew McGrath, 27.
This year was the first since 2012 that passes for the second weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which draws more than 600,000 people annually to the desert city of Indio (Riverside County), didn’t sell out. Even resale tickets were popping up on third-party sites such as StubHub for less than face value ($499 to $1,269).
Closer to home, the annual three-day Outside Lands festival didn’t sell out its 16th edition, which ran Aug. 9-11 at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. While presale tickets sold out within an hour of being released in early April (before the concert lineup was announced), plenty of general admission, VIP and Golden Gate Club passes remained available throughout the weekend.
This marks a major change from 2021, when — as one of the first major festivals in the country to return after the start of the COVID pandemic — Outside Lands general admission and VIP tickets sold out within hours.
This summer, it’s been a completely different story.
Artists such as Jennifer Lopez and the Black Keys have scrapped entire arena tours that were struggling to sell tickets. Now pop artists such as Charli XCX and Nicki Minaj are poised to play to half-empty arenas, despite their albums sparking viral memes over the past year.
Several multiday events such as the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival, Desert Dazeand the Skull & Roses Grateful Dead tribute festival have also been canceled due to financial difficulties, partially due to low ticket sales and the rising cost of creating such major productions. It seems the post-pandemic itch for live music has plateaued. But why?
People have stopped ‘revenge spending,’” Jordan Kurland, partner at Bay Area concert promoter Noise Pop and co-founder and partner at Brilliant Corners Artist Management, told the Chronicle, referring to the compulsion to splurge on in-person experiences to make up for opportunities lost during the COVID pandemic.
He added: “We’re still dealing with inflation, so everyday life is more expensive for people.”
Indeed, music lovers seem to be less willing to break the bank for a concert that might be anything less than extraordinary. “When tickets to a show cost more than a flight to Hawaii, it’s hard to justify,” said San Francisco resident and regular concertgoer Drew McGrath, 27.
This year was the first since 2012 that passes for the second weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which draws more than 600,000 people annually to the desert city of Indio (Riverside County), didn’t sell out. Even resale tickets were popping up on third-party sites such as StubHub for less than face value ($499 to $1,269).
Closer to home, the annual three-day Outside Lands festival didn’t sell out its 16th edition, which ran Aug. 9-11 at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. While presale tickets sold out within an hour of being released in early April (before the concert lineup was announced), plenty of general admission, VIP and Golden Gate Club passes remained available throughout the weekend.
This marks a major change from 2021, when — as one of the first major festivals in the country to return after the start of the COVID pandemic — Outside Lands general admission and VIP tickets sold out within hours.
...artists who put on stage shows WORTHY of steep ticket prices are very few and far between.
