The live music business just posted back-to-back near-record years — and somehow, that’s the complicated part.
According to a new report from Luminate Intelligence, the top 100 global tours grossed $9.1 billion in both 2024 and 2025. Attendance held flat as well, at roughly 69.5 million tickets in 2025 versus 69.7 million the year prior. Pollstar’s numbers told a similar story — gross down 6.1% year-over-year, ticket sales off 3.7%. Still massive. Just not growing.
The post-pandemic surge that carried the industry through Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour, and a string of other blockbuster runs appears to have plateaued. Live music hasn’t crashed. It’s just caught its breath.
Concert Ticket Prices Are More Nuanced Than the Headlines Suggest
Average concert ticket prices across the top 100 global tours actually dipped slightly in 2025 — $127.17 versus $130.36 in 2024. That’s still the second-highest yearly average Billboard Boxscore has ever recorded. But the modest pullback may signal that the industry heard the complaints.
Here’s the part worth watching for anyone in music programming: price sensitivity is declining — particularly among younger fans — even as concert ticket prices remain historically high. In Q1 2024, 75% of Gen Z live event attendees cited ticket cost as a barrier to attending shows. By Q1 2026, that number had dropped to 57%. Among the U.S. general population, the figure fell from 59% to 53% over the same period.
Perceived value moved in the opposite direction. The percentage of U.S. music listeners who rated concerts as a good or great value climbed from 73% in Q2 2024 to 78% in Q1 2026. Festival favorability jumped from 74% to 82%.
That’s a meaningful shift. Fans are paying more, complaining less, and increasingly feeling like they got their money’s worth. That’s not a given in any entertainment category right now.
Gen Z Is Going to More Shows — and Traveling to Do It
Overall concert attendance in the U.S. has held steady since its 2023 peak, but the frequency of attendance is rising. The percentage of concertgoers who attended three to four shows in a 12-month period has grown since 2024, driven largely by Gen Z. Zoomers attending two concerts per year grew from 29% in Q1 2024 to 37% in Q1 2026.
Gen Z women are leading that surge. They consistently outpace Gen Z men in both past and planned concert attendance — a divergence that tracks with the era’s biggest touring artists, many of whom command predominantly female fanbases. Gen Z men, by contrast, are redirecting discretionary dollars toward video games, spending double on gaming versus live events in Q1 2026.
Music tourism is also accelerating. Gen Z attendees are increasingly willing to travel to see artists in other markets, and the data suggests cost of travel is less of a deterrent than it used to be. Bad Bunny’s San Juan residency helped Puerto Rico attract a record 7.5 million visitors in 2025, according to Condé Nast Traveler — a concrete example of what happens when a tour stop becomes a destination.
What This Means for Radio
The core audience for live music — Millennial males with household incomes above the national average — still drives the most spending. Concert and festival attendees spend twice as much on music activities per month as the general population and consume significantly more music overall: 60 hours per month for concertgoers, 66 for festival fans.
Those are your heaviest listeners. They are engaged, spending, and deeply invested in music as an identity. The challenge for radio isn’t whether this audience still exists. It’s whether stations are giving them a reason to stay.
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David Hill serves as a Music Radio Editor, Columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. A radio lifer with more than 30 years behind the mic, in the control room, and in the program director’s chair, David’s career spans influential stops at brands such as WIYY 98 Rock, WBAL-AM, and 99X. He has worked across multiple formats and ownership groups, including iHeartMedia and Cumulus Media, developing talent, breaking music, and navigating every major industry shift from diary to PPM and terrestrial dominance to streaming disruption. When he’s not writing or analyzing the industry, Dave runs The Tune Farm, a marketing firm built to help artists and brands grow audience the same way great radio always has—by creating connection, not just impressions. He can be reached at David@BarrettMedia.com.
