Are concert tickets UNDER priced?

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

Ticketmaster's CEO says that concert tickets are underpriced. But from inflation to bots to unscrupulous resellers, the market for tickets feels out of control to many fans. Can anything be done?

Today on the show: Ticket resellers, a new law in Maine, and a T-shirt cannon.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR. Mali Obam Suin is a composer slash bassist slash singer-songwriter. She plays different genres from jazz to rock. She actually just performed two shows with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. And Molly says that a few years ago, she remembers ticket prices for other bands going up to $150. And I was like, wow, I'll never charge more than that. I remember saying that to myself. Like, that's insane. Like, I still want to be able to reach people who actually
0:37.7	can't afford a $150 ticket, you know, and I think it's important to be able to choose your audience
0:43.8	that way and not just, like, have your own success curate an audience that is of a specific income
0:50.0	bracket. Live Nation CEO, Michael Rapino, though, has a much different view on ticket pricing.
0:57.1	Live Nation is the parent company of Ticketmaster. And Michael Rapino said last month that
1:02.8	concert tickets are underpriced and have been for a long time. That comment was tough for a lot of
1:09.4	music fans to swallow. I mean, take Bruno Mars.
1:15.0	He is playing two shows in Las Vegas in December. I went on Ticketmaster yesterday, and the cheapest
1:21.0	seat I could find was $850. Ticket price is going to Mars. Maybe that example is on the higher end, but the price of
1:30.5	concert tickets has gone up faster than overall inflation. And the ticket market is this economic
1:36.6	puzzle that continues to be devil fans, venue owners and artists. This is the indicator from Planet Money, I'm Derrym Woods.
1:46.5	And I'm Waylon Wong.
1:47.7	The strange economics of the ticket market has given rise to reseller bots.
1:52.8	They're considered an industry scourge that makes prices higher.
1:56.5	And yet, in the world of economics, they do have a function.
1:59.8	Today on the show, the arguments for and against the ticket bots and why it's so hard to
2:05.9	get rid of them from the ticket market.
2:08.3	We travel to Maine to see how that state is battling the bots.
2:15.9	I want it that way was a Backstreet Boys banger, but was it also a secret economics lesson?
2:21.0	If you watch the music video, you can really see an illustration of the concept of comparative advantage.
2:26.6	All right.
2:27.1	In our most recent bonus episode, we compete to see who can pick the most Planet Money song, movie, and more from 1999.
	...

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