New Live Music Data Suggests Cautious Optimism

The halfway point of 2024 saw the live music industry making more money than ever, but the inflating ticket prices amid flattening audience growth suggested a more precarious future than the record-breaking grosses let on.

Luckily for the biz, the latest Q3 2024 data coming out shows signs of long-term stability following the rollercoaster pandemic years — but the same points of concern around affordability persist.

Updating its data for the top 100 worldwide tours, Pollstar reported a solid showing for live music in Q3, bouncing back with mostly upward growth following a more mixed midyear assessment. Measuring from November 2023 to August 2024, the top 100 global tours have brought in a record-setting $5.68 billion gross across 44.9 million tickets sold, up 14.1% and 2.6%, respectively, from the same period last year.

The average gross of $1.87 million per tour was also a welcome improvement from last year’s Q3 ($1.75 million; up 6.8%), but average tickets sold dipped for another quarter, from 15,365 tickets per concert in Q3 2023 to 14,766 tickets today (down 3.9%).

And of course, there’s still the issue of ballooning ticket prices, which climbed 11.2%, from $113.85 in Q3 2023 to $126.55 — almost a dollar cheaper than three months ago but still an all-time high for Q3.

These latest Pollstar numbers put live music in a somewhat healthier place than where the business was at the midyear point, which saw negative YoY percentages in all categories except total gross and ticket price.

But even if the numbers are trending upward, the elephant hasn’t left the venue: The price of tickets is still outpacing the number of tickets being sold. And live music’s main players continue to push audiences’ tolerance for paying up and wading in broken virtual queues as smaller venues and artists pay the price.

This isn’t a trend isolated to this year, either — per Pollstar’s data, tickets sold for this year to date are 5.47% smaller than during the same period in 2018 (47.5 million). Average ticket price, meanwhile, has grown almost 50% over $85.03 in 2018.

A slightly improved problem is still a problem, but in their recent webinar “Live Music Landscape: Current Insights & Trends,” Luminate and Billboard offered reason for careful optimism. Among the key findings from Luminate’s “U.S. Music 360” survey were indications that the “main consumer” torch may be in the process of passing from Millennials to Gen Z as the latter ages and gains more disposable income.

For the first time since Luminate began tracking quarterly live music consumer data, Gen Z spent the most on concerts out of all generations in Q2 2024, outpacing the average U.S. music listener in monthly spending by more than 23%.

Similarly, concert attendance is also on the rise for Gen Z, as the demo has now outpaced Millennials for two quarters in a row. Q2 2024 for Gen Z concert attendance saw a particularly notable jump to 22%, while Millennials dipped slightly to 16%. Even with Gen Z attendance slowing in the latest quarter, the fact the group still tops Millennials by a percentage point suggests the former may be set to overtake the latter in the long run.

If that scenario is indeed playing out, then that’s potential good news for live music’s future, since Gen Z consumers are already defined by their fandom and willingness to pay up for “experiences.” Deloitte’s “2024 Digital Media Trends” report found that 58% of Gen Zers said their fandom for a given musical artist was important to their identity, outpacing the 50% of Millennials and 32% of Gen Xers who felt the same.

A recent report by Bread Financial and AAA also found that not only over half of Zoomers surveyed plan to hit a concert within the next year, but 65% said they have traveled or intend to travel more than 50 miles to attend.

These signs point to an abundance of passionate consumers for live music, but price remains a core issue that might finally cause the bubble to burst. In its live music webinar, Luminate also cited ticket price still being a major barrier to entry for 68% of listeners surveyed in the U.S.