Analysis released this week by the Protect Ticket Rights group showed that consumers are regularly able to save significantly by purchasing tickets to concerts on resale marketplaces, reflecting the ever-inflating ticket prices being charged by event operators at the “primary” box office. An overview of nearly 300,000 tickets sold for performances featuring artists including George Strait and the Red Hot Chili Peppers revealed savings of more $7.5 million for consumers buying resale tickets compared to the box office prices for 10 tours and 25 concerts.
“At 25 concerts and across 10 tours so far this year, fans had 7.5 million reasons to be thankful that they can buy tickets beyond the box office or the sole contracted primary ticketing company,” said Brian Berry, advocacy director for Protect Ticket Rights.
“While events with outsized demand grab attention when ticket prices go high, every day there are great deals offered by a seller on the secondary market and this data unequivocally proves that the secondary resale ticket market is important for fans,” he continued.
The data was drawn from Automatiq, a processing company in the live event ticketing marketplace segment, and covers concerts that took place between February and August of 2023. It compared the actual price paid at the box office (face value plus fees) with the price paid for the same tickets by a resale customer including fees. The savings shown illustrate, the analysis concludes, that “while the very popular tours tend to sell out fast and command high prices both on the primary and secondary markets, the vast majority of concerts experience a more normal level of demand and this is where fans can save big.”
Given that companies like Live Nation Entertainment and AEG are lobbying hard to see consumer ticket rights to use, transfer, or resell tickets they’ve purchased stripped by lawmakers, the data shows how potentially harmful such actions could be for consumers. It comes on the heels of a report showing similar savings potential for consumers released by the Coalition for Ticket Fairness earlier this week, as well as data showing the resale marketplace savings driven for sports ticket buyers by the Sports Fans Coalition earlier this year.
From the report:
Top 25 Concerts with the Largest Savings – This segment analyzed the sale of 124,056 tickets between February and August 2023.
- Nearly $4.3 million – the total amount fans saved on the secondary market.
- Over $43 per ticket – the average savings for fans.
- Top Concert for Overall Savings: Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Las Vegas Show on April 1 saved a total of $290,335. This is based on 5,144 tickets sold to this April 1 show, with an average resale price of $148.01 compared to their original cost of $204.45 for a per ticket average savings of $56.44.
- Top Concert for Per Ticket Savings: George Strait fans saved an average of $153.55 per ticket to George Strait’s show on August 2 in Fort Lauderdale. This is based on 1,324 tickets sold to this show, with an average resale price of $356.57, compared to their original cost of $510.12.
Top 10 Tours with the Largest Savings – This segment analyzed a data set of 153,431 tickets sold between February and August 2023.
- Over $3.2 Million – the amount fans saved by shopping on the secondary market.
- Nearly $37 per ticket – the average savings for fans.
- Top Single Tour for Overall Savings: Sam Smith fans saved $622,195 based on 27,824 ticket sales included in our data set, with an average resale price of $69.07, compared to their original cost of $91.43 for a per-ticket average savings of $22.36.
- Highest Average for Per Ticket Savings from a Tour: George Strait fans saved an average of $153.55 per ticket to George Strait’s show on August 2 in Fort Lauderdale. This is based on 1,324 tickets sold to this show, with an average resale price of $356.57, compared to their original cost of $510.12.
Currently, ticket transfer rights are protected by law only in a handful of states, including New York, Connecticut, Illinois, Virginia, Utah, and Colorado. Lawmakers have put together new legislation at both the state and federal level to protect consumers from transfer-restrictive mobile-only ticketing systems, but the enormous lobbying power from companies like Live Nation has largely kept such legislation from passage.
“Ticket transferability has always protected fans’ ability to comparison shop for deals, and [this] data clearly demonstrate[s] that many fans can find substantial savings,” the report reads, in part. “2022 polling from Protect Ticket Rights showed that nationally, 81.6% of respondents support transferability and nearly the same amount (79.3%) back rules to protect that right.”
At the federal level, the BOSS and SWIFT Act is the lone piece of proposed legislation to codify ticket transfer rights for consumers across the U.S. – but it has faced significant pushback from industry insiders – both Live Nation-centric, and the “Fix the Tix” coalition, which purports itself to represent small and independent venues, but has numerous ties to giants like former Live Nation Entertainment Chairman and Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff. There is expected legislation to come from Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) that is expected to largely follow the wishlist drawn up by Live Nation Entertainment and its cadre of venue and agency clients, but no official announcement of that legislation’s formal introduction to congress has taken place.
The full report is available at the Protect Ticket Rights website here (PDF opens in new window)