‘The people who are gonna go to the front of the stage are gonna be people who are real fans, people who are kids, people who can’t afford the crazy money.
‘But they are the people that need to be down the front; they’re the people that are gonna keep this music alive. Some of the ticket prices that people pay, well for me, it’s insane.’
That’s Iron Maiden’s frontman Bruce Dickinson making it very clear what he thinks about dynamic pricing for concert tickets in an interview earlier this year. It will be music to Iron Maiden fans’ ears that ticket prices for the band’s 2025 Run For Your Lives tour will be fixed when they go on sale later this week.
Not so for the 14million Oasis fans. Prices for the band’s Wembley shows were booked to start from from £151.25 for standing tickets and £74.25 for seated tickets while the most expensive were £506.25 for a pre-show party, exhibition and seated ticket package. Tickets were initially sold through Ticketmaster, Gigsandtours and SeeTickets, the latter two of which sold tickets only at face value. Yet some fans found after hours of queueing on line they were faced with the dilemma of either paying triple the value for a ticket or go without.
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Dynamic pricing is a system used by ticket sales site Ticketmaster which sees the cost of entry to a concert fluctuate based on demand.
The idea is along the lines of ride-hailing apps, which charge you more for a cab when demand where you are is high and less when it’s low.
Ticketmaster brought in the flexible pricing structure in 2022 and since then, fans paying to see Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen and Harry Styles have been exposed to spending more than they were expecting to secure their place in the arena.
Such has been the public outcry that Labour’s culture secretary Lisa Nandy has now called for a review into dynamic pricing and secondary ticket sites.
The 14million Oasis fans found after hours of queueing on line they were faced with the dilemma of either paying triple the value for a ticket or go without
It’s tempting to think the music sector is awash with cash – and for the world’s rock and pop icons, it’s true.
Megastar Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour passed the $1billion grossing mark earlier this year, according to music trade magazine Billboard.
By December when the 20-month tour reaches its finale in Vancouver, Canada, it could well have grossed $2billion (£1.5billion).
Even 30 years ago band tours were big bucks. Cult rock band Pink Floyd’s 1994 The Division Bell Tour grossed more than $250million (£190million), according to Rolling Stone magazine.
Allowing for inflation, that’s the equivalent of a whopping £402million.
Megastar Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour passed the $1billion grossing mark earlier this year, according to music trade magazine Billboard
Metallica, The Police, Ed Sheeran, Madonna, Beyoncé, U2, Harry Styles, AC/DC, The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Guns N’ Roses and Elton John have all sold tour tickets to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars each.
Where does the money go? These figures are gross after all – and there are huge teams to pay before counting the profit. But it still may feel like your favourite band is ripping you off. Here we break down where the price you pay for your ticket actually goes.
RESALE SITE BOOKING FEES
The Oasis tour has exposed just how outrageous the charges are on some of the ticket resale sites.
Ticket resales at anything other than face value in the UK should render a ticket invalid, meaning the promoter can cancel it.
However, there’s a loophole.
Resale sites such as Viagogo, Gigsberg and StubHub have been criticised for adding booking fees between 30 and 40 per cent to ticket prices, with some fans looking at paying more than £1,000 for a ticket that should have cost less than a fifth of that.
According to a post from Oasis on X, anyone wanting to resell tickets should do that only at face value and only through Ticketmaster and Twickets, which cap additional fees.
Ed Sheeran, as well as Metallica, The Police, Madonna and Beyoncé sold tour tickets to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars each
Is this taking fans for a ride? It’s tricky to get insiders to speak out, but Alcopop! Records’ Jack Clothier says, emphatically, yes.
‘The argument for dynamic pricing is that it costs more when demand is high – but I’ve never seen it go the other way where shows that don’t sell out are selling tickets at a discount.
‘The purpose of resale sites was supposed to discourage touts and scalpers from rinsing fans desperate to see their favourite band. In reality, it looks like they’ve just taken that model and made it so much worse – and they’re taking a slice of it. It’s outrageous.’
ROYALTIES
Every time a song gets played the band earns a royalty.
The amount the band takes for live performances depends on the percentage they’ve negotiated – anything from 5 per cent up to 45 per cent for the really big, big hitters.
That royalty is then multiplied by the number of people who hear the song, so if you’re playing to an average of 80,000 a night over 19 gigs (the current number scheduled on the Oasis Live ’25 Tour) that’s a lot of money. In the UK, artists usually join the Performing Right Society’s PRS for Music, which collects and pays royalties when a member’s music is played in public, broadcast, downloaded, streamed, or performed live both in the UK and around the world.
Coldplay has since pledged that 10 per cent of the proceeds from their 2025 London and Hull Music of the Spheres shows will go to the Music Venue Trust
Bands playing at small licensed venues usually get a flat PRS royalty fee, currently around £10 per show.
For bigger shows, PRS charges the venue hosting the concert a minimum of 4 per cent of gross box office receipts.
Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres Tour kicked off in March 2022 and is set to finish in November this year after playing more than 170 shows around the world.
According to Billboard, the tour has already grossed more than $1billion (£760million), selling 9.3 million tickets and it still has another 15 dates to play.
To put royalties into perspective, PRS charges come in at $40million (£30 million) on a tour grossing $1billion.
This year the PRS for Music collective reported its highest ever royalty payouts, totalling £944million between 175,000 members – up 13 per cent on 2023.
Royalties paid out from public performances, including live music, were £3.7million higher than in 2023, reflecting the ‘continued buoyancy of stadium and arena live events’.
THE MANAGER
How much a manager is paid comes down to the band and its management contract. As a rule of thumb in the music industry, band managers usually take about 10 per cent of the gross revenue per show.
So if a band grosses £500million for a tour – the manager takes home £50million.
THE PROMOTER
Whether you’re playing a 90,000-person gig at Wembley Stadium or Friday night at Liverpool’s independent venue EBGBs to 150 people – promoters make the show happen.
Promoters can be anyone from a self-confessed super fan organising a one-off show in Didcot, to an established venue booking artists to fill their seats year-round or a massive global conglomerate booking in a worldwide tour.
Harry Styles was one of many artists who has been exposed to spending more than they were expecting to secure their place in the arena
There’s no set structure for how promoters get paid – it’s down to the band and their management to negotiate a deal.
For smaller shows promoters tend to offer a fixed fee or advance based on how many tickets they think they’ll sell.
For example, a mid-tier indie band playing at an independent venue with space for 600 fans might sell tickets for £15 a pop.
The venue, acting as the promoter, might offer them a fixed advance of £4,500 based on them being confident they’ll sell at least 400 tickets.
Depending on the band, the promoter might also offer to split any ticket sales over that benchmark after their costs are covered, typically 80 per cent goes to the band and the remaining 20 per cent to the promoter.
Bands guaranteed to sell out every ticket have a massive bargaining chip and can squeeze promoters hard, often waiving a fixed advance and negotiating a 95 per cent take for themselves.
This is broad-brush maths, but to give an idea of the scale, if you’re selling 90,000 tickets at an average of £300 and the promoter takes just 5 per cent, they’re still walking away with £1.35million for one show.
The band, on the other hand, takes home £25.65million – not bad for a night’s work.
Wind that all the way back to grass roots and it’s a different story.
A relatively unknown band playing to an audience of 100 show might agree an advance of £250 based on 50 tickets sold for five pounds each.
The promoter keeps the other £250, assuming the show sells out.
Whether the band earns £250 or £25million, there are bills to be paid out of that.
THE RIDER
The rider is the name given to everything the band requests on the night of their concert and the cost comes out of ticket sales.
Jack Clothier, founder of Oxford-based indie record label Alcopop! Records, explains: ‘Riders can be the stuff of legend – Van Halen famously demanded a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones taken out.
‘If you’re a top band like Oasis, you can request pretty much what you like. If you’re a fairly well-established band, you might get a meal and free bar.
‘If you’re just starting out, you’re more likely to find a packet of salt and vinegar crisps and four bottles of warm beer. Some venues even charge for towel hire.’
THE REPS
Most music tours will have a band rep – someone who organises everything and makes sure all the stuff that needs to happen for the band on the night, happens.
Depending on the band, the cost of reps is going to go from ‘someone from the venue thrown in by the promoter for nothing’ to thousands of pounds if your tour is bringing in hundred of millions of pounds.
The bigger the show, the more reps have to handle. Above a certain size, it’s pretty normal for there to be a band rep looking after the artist and a venue rep making sure sound, lighting and other venue-based duties. Teams of reps aren’t unusual for the biggest concerts.
EXTRA SECURITY
While most venues provide security, top names may request more and this will be added in to your ticket price. For example, it was reported that Taylor Swift was spending more than £30milllion on security for the European stretch of her The Eras Tour. Between the 51 shows she’s playing on this leg, that’s almost £600,000 a night.
THE MERCH
Bands make money touring out of more than just ticket sales – the other big money spinner is merchandise sales.
As any parent accompanying their 11-year old to see their favourite celebrity pop idol will tell you, the prices are eye-popping.
A simple T-shirt sporting the band’s tour might cost anywhere from £25 to £100 if they are global superstars.
TikTok posts showcasing Drake’s Big As The What Tour hoodie costing £167) asking ‘is it worth it?’ elicits a resounding ‘YES!’ from dedicated fans.
VENUE MERCHANDISE
Jack Clothier raises another scandal brewing in the music industry – the cost of merch.
This one isn’t usually down to the band – more often it’s the venues.
Anecdotally, he says, there is a rising number of live event venues now taking a cut of all merchandise sales.
‘Some are taking up to 40 per cent of the money spent by fans on t-shirts, records and other merchandise,’ says Jack.
While that’s at the top end, it’s becoming more normal for venues to take a cut of merch sales somewhere between 20 and 25 per cent.
Bruce Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt, and Nils Lofgren perform during the 2024 Sea.Hear.Now Festival
The band is responsible for design, production, transport, storage and tax for merch, leaving them with virtually nothing after the venue takes its share.
‘For huge sellout tours that might not be too much of an issue, but for the grass roots bands it can kill the tour completely – making it financially unviable. Inevitably, it just means merch prices have to go up to cover the costs and it’s fans who pay.’
In 2022,the Featured Artists Coalition started the 100 pc Venues directory, listing those that didn’t take a cut of the band’s merch takings.
Former Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook and The Charlatans’ Tim Burgess have both been big supporters.
At the time Burgess told music magazine NME it was ‘not about money for The Charlatans, but about fairness.’
He said: ‘Often at Charlatans gigs, our fans smash the record for the bar take at a venue.
‘When I first tweeted about merch commission, Warren Ellis from The Bad Seeds replied that we could maybe asking the venues for a percentage of the bar take. It’s no more unreasonable than them taxing the merch.’
Whether a levy is put in place remains to be seen, but without funding support Jack says it’s fans who will suffer.
‘These venues have to make money to survive and, sadly, it’s tribute acts that are the big ticket sellers,’ he says.
‘That leaves other original and creative musicians out in the cold and it’s fans who lose out.’
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