According to the New York Times, rock concert ticket prices continue to rise in the US. They reckon average best seat ticket prices are up $50 on last year, and nearly ten times the price they were ten years ago. They point out that best seat tickets for a Madonna gig were around $250 last year, now they are $300 - in 1990 they were $30!
Two years ago similar rising ticket prices were used to explain what was then considered to be a ticket-sales-decline-crisis in the US live sector. Now, although overall tickets sales continue to slide slightly in the States, no one is talking of crisis, perhaps because bands and promoters are making more money out of gigging than ever before.
In that regard, the New York Times reports that a band like The Eagles can now make more out of a week of touring than selling a million albums. Whether or not the live sector can continue to profit so highly remains to be seen.