You open your phone, hands shaking with excitement, ready to secure tickets to see your favorite music artist. Within minutes — even seconds — your excitement crashes as the screen flashes a bold “Sold Out”, or possibly worse, prices skyrocket for a seat that barely has a view of the stage. Even that “cheap” $100 or 200 ticket is out of reach for many.
Concerts. It used to be the ultimate escape to enjoy yourself, but now feels like an activity only a few can access. Across the music scene, many fans — especially low-income people of all ages — are getting shut out by extremely high prices, resale websites, special VIP packages, and other exorbitant fees. What is behind this jump in prices, and how is this affecting Bishop’s students?
National data reflects this shift, as in recent years, this feeling of disappointment when buying tickets has become more of the norm. According to LendingTree, a study done in 2023 showed that of around 2,000 U.S. consumers, 41% of them claimed to regret overspending on a show, and 71% opted out in the first place when seeing high prices. Concert ticket prices have risen rapidly, making what once felt like a universal experience harder for many fans to access. This is reflected on Pollstar, where it states average attendance of concerts in 2024 was down by 14.9%. At the same time, ticket prices showed an increase of 9.4%.
Pollstar reports that the average ticket price for the top 100 tours in 2024 was $135.90, and in 2019 prices were around $96.17, incredibly higher than the $25.81 average in 1996.”
On top of the rising base prices from the original seller, there are often service fees and resellers who charge higher prices, taking advantage of desperate fans. This leaves many young people — especially students — wondering whether seeing their favorite music artist live is really worth the cost.
Recently, with singer Olivia Dean’s newly announced “The Art of Loving Live” 2026 tour, reseller ticket prices shot up rapidly. According to The Guardian, “After the tour sold out in minutes on 21 November and tickets appeared on resale sites at prices in excess of $1,000.”
This outraged Olivia Dean herself. Dean wrote on Instagram, directed to Ticketmaster and other major reselling companies, “The prices at which you’re allowing tickets to be re-sold is vile and completely against our wishes. Live music should be affordable and accessible and we need to find a new way of making that possible.”
Ariana Grande’s tour was another example of a spike in the unaffordability of tickets. Ema Valdez Pappenhagen (‘27) and her family had planned to attend Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine” tour, which was announced in late August of 2025, and is set to start in July of 2026. Ema and many other fans around the world were prepared to buy tickets online, but as soon as tickets went on sale, they sold out in nine seconds, worldwide.
The initial seats Ema was looking to purchase were around $99, but after reaching resale websites, they skyrocketed to nearly $1,000. According to Ticketmaster, a popular website for buying and selling tickets, the cheapest possible seat to see Ariana on her tour in Los Angeles is $693. The price range is similar for almost all of her tour locations, ranging from $500 to $1,000. Since Ariana Grande had not toured in about six years, demand was intense. According to Consumer Affairs, social media platforms were filled with comments about the long queues of up to a million people that were attempting to secure tickets to the tour.
For students like Ema, her frustration stems not only from her inability to purchase tickets but also from seeing other resellers take advantage of fans for profit.
When Nora Weise (‘28) learned that her favorite artist, Tame Impala, was performing, she sought to avoid the crashing online websites and tried a more traditional approach. She described waiting in line at the concert, attempting to purchase tickets there. Nora shared, “I even sat outside… [waiting] for tickets to drop, but they never did.” Although she never successfully purchased tickets in line, she was able to have her mom buy them just in time for an exceptionally high price.
She added, “I was lucky enough to have my mom buy them for me, but I know that’s not an option for all true fans, and I think that’s a really difficult and sad thing.” This experience was emotional for Nora as she shared that she wanted to purchase the tickets herself independently.
Some artists, such as Jack Johnson, are seeing these issues and are taking action to protect fans. Before announcing his full tour on November 7, he had a small concert at the Coast Film and Music Festival at Laguna Beach, California, which was held shortly after his announcement on the weekend of November 8-9. To avoid thousands of fans waiting in a queue to buy tickets, he sold tickets through an auction so that only fans pulled from the auction could be directed to buy tickets.
He also prevented major reselling, limiting it to only one company called Tixr Verified Resell. Johnson did this to make sure the prices of tickets stayed reasonably low. According to the Coast Film and Music Festival website, “Resales are limited to face value only to ensure fairness and fan protection.”
Calvin Lubsen (‘28), who attended this concert, said, “I was lucky to get pulled in the auction, but it really made a difference and made the whole process less chaotic.” Jack Johnson’s approach stands in contrast to the very hands-off method that the majority of the industry uses.
Ultimately, young student fans are the ones being affected. Concerts represent more than live music; they are a place of passion and community to many, but now young fans are facing the reality that this experience is no longer accessible.
To help the music industry maintain trust and accessibility for fans, students are requesting a shift. Another attendee of the Tame Impala concert, Nick Pfister (‘27) shared, “In order for fans to be able to go to concerts, a big change will have to be made.”
