How much control do artists have over concert ticket prices? : NPR

Harry Styles performs on stage at the Brit Awards 2020 in London, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020.

Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP

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Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP

It has been an exciting few days for Harry Styles fans.

Last week, the pop star announced a new single and a tour that includes a 30-date New York City residency. Ticket sales started Monday, but among the excitement, many fans were in an uproar about long virtual queue waits and high resale ticket prices, and turned their ire to the sales platform, Ticketmaster, and Styles himself.

“The thing that sucks the most about this is that nothing will be done to hold artists accountable for pricing their tickets this way,” one X user said.

But how much control do artists have over the prices of tickets?

It largely depends on the artist.

Before heading out on tour, it’s common practice for artists to set a budget and revenue targets, which can be based on how complex a show is to produce and who they need to pay, according to Michael Kaminsky, the founder of music management company KMGMT. This includes the artists themselves, and usually band members, an agent and a manager, he said.

“Touring’s gotten pretty expensive, and you want to bring production, you want to do a good show, and you very often figure out you have to make a certain amount of money,” Kaminsky said.

In the U.S., artists usually then turn to promoters, who get a cut of the ticket sales to market the show and hit those revenue targets. Promoters may do this by selling things like merchandise or parking packages. But ticket sales steer the ship, Kaminsky said.

“There’s definitely bands and managers and teams who are very conscious and sensitive to what their ultimate ticket price is going to be, and there are some who are much less so,” he said.

Last fall, for example, singer Olivia Dean took a strong stance against resale prices at her shows. Ticketmaster then activated its Face Value Exchange feature for her tour dates, it said in a statement on its website. Under the program, tickets can only be sold at the price a consumer paid for them, and is something artists can opt into.

Some artists like Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam and Hozier have used the feature, Ticketmaster told NPR in an email statement. NPR has reached out to Styles’ team to see if he will participate in the program for his upcoming shows, but has not heard back.

The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster last September, accusing the company of willingly misleading consumers about ticket prices and cooperating with scalpers to drive up resale prices. Ticketmaster told NPR it bans “speculative pricing” from its site, in which scalpers post tickets they don’t have before they go on sale, and set prices based on what they think fans will pay.

The Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company in 2024, alleging it has a pattern of retaliating against competition, making it harder for fans to have options on prices. Fans have also accused Ticketmaster of “dynamic pricing,” or “surge pricing,” in which a company fluctuates its prices, in real time, based on demand.

Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster’s sister company, has said in a previous statement the DOJ suit “ignores everything that is actually responsible for higher ticket prices, from rising production costs, to artist popularity, to 24/7 online ticket scalping that reveals the public’s willingness to pay far more than primary ticket prices.”

Ticketmaster said in an email it has never used dynamic pricing.

When a ticket is sold, the majority of the proceeds from the ticket’s face value goes to the artist. The promoter takes a small cut, and the rest goes to show costs, such as lighting, audio and permits, according to Ticketmaster. Money from fees gets dispersed between Ticketmaster, which gets about a third, and the venue.

Ticketmaster said the company is advocating for legislation that would ban speculative pricing and cap markups for resale tickets at 20%.

Ultimately, though, Kaminsky said artists, promoters and ticket companies would have to come together to bring ticket prices down.

“It’s got to be everyone working toward that goal,” he said. “It’s really not as simple as just saying, ‘Hey, we can check a box and now suddenly everything is cheaper.'”