Demand for concert tickets is higher than ever in 2025, resulting in higher prices across the board, but according to Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, they’re still too low.
While speaking at CNBC and Boardroom’s Game Plan conference, Rapino claimed, “Music has been underappreciated,” before comparing concerts to sporting events. “In sports, I joke it’s like a badge of honor to spend 70 grand for a Knicks courtside [seat],” he said, adding, “They beat me up if we charge $800 for Beyoncé.”
Rapino, who in 2022 was the country’s highest-paid CEO with a total compensation of $139 million, went on to say that despite climbing costs and dynamic pricing, “We have a lot of runway left. So when you read about ticket prices going up, the average concert price is still $72. Try going to a Laker game for that, and there’s 80 of them. The concert is underpriced and has been for a long time.”
According to Pollstar‘s 2024 year-end report, the average cost of a ticket to one of North America’s top 100 tours of the year was actually $135, though if you include smaller venues, Rapino’s figure isn’t far off. Stadium shows averaged about $128 per ticket, while arena shows came in around $98. Amphitheaters ran about $70, theaters $75, and clubs were a few cents shy of $44. Taken together, the average concert ticket in 2024 cost about $83.
That said, top-selling artists like Taylor Swift routinely charge several hundred dollars for tickets. The average ticket price for her Eras Tour was $499, with tickets going for thousands more on the secondary resale market.
Rapino argued that more intense live productions are driving up ticket prices, claiming Beyoncé used 62 production trucks for her most recent Cowboy Carter tour. “That’s a Super Bowl she’s putting on every night. Ten years ago, there might’ve been ten trucks,” Rapino explained.
While Billboard reported that nosebleed tickets for Beyoncé started at $102 on the primary market, they soon ballooned several times over on the secondary sites like StubHub and VividSeats, only to fall to around $20 in many cities in the weeks leading up to her shows. But while large swings in the re-sale prices did seem to indicate that “face value” for many of those dates differed from actual market value, curious secondary market behavior didn’t stop the tour from, per a subsequent Billboard report, grossing $407.6 million, selling 1.6 million tickets for her 32 concerts in nine cities, making it the most successful country music tour in history.
Returning to Rapino’s sports analogy, numbers from Pollstar do support his claim that concert tickets are the cheaper option of the two: The average price for a football ticket was $297 as of March 2024, with basketball games following at $165, and hockey games at $146, while the average baseball ticket came in at $79—slightly less than the cost of an average concert ticket.
As concert ticket prices continue to rise, Rapino and Live Nation gain more control over the live music industry. In addition to administering primary ticketing with Ticketmaster and concert production and artist management with Live Nation—which merged in 2010 to form Live Nation Entertainment, amid considerable controversy—the company continues to develop and operate arenas, amphitheaters, theaters, and clubs around the country, allowing it to control the ticketing, tours, artists, and venues at every level.
After more than a decade of complaints from consumers, the U.S. government has taken the first steps in holding Live Nation accountable for the outsized influence it exerts on the ticketing industry. Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, calling the country’s largest entertainment company a monopoly and calling for it to be broken up. Then, earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and seven states sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster for allegedly allowing brokers to circumvent the site’s security protocols, purchase millions of tickets using multiple accounts, and sell them at an inflated markup in violation of the 2016 Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act.
“This is not just bad business; it is deception and abuse of monopoly power,” Stephen Parker, executive director of the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), said of the most recent lawsuit. “By turning a blind eye to scalpers, even giving them the tools to bypass limits and harvest tickets, Live Nation has acted as the promoter, the primary ticket seller, the artists’ manager, and the scalper.”
While the wheels of justice slowly turn, Live Nation Entertainment wields unparalleled power in determining the cost of concert ticket prices. And according to its boss, prices still aren’t high enough.