Ticketing company Eventbrite last week revealed that the trend of fans buying tickets closer to a show - which began during the COVID pandemic - has continued in the last year. As a result, some promoters have started putting tickets on sale at a later date.
According to Eventbrite’s stats, the average time between ticket purchase and show date on its platform in the US in 2022 was 25 days, whereas now it’s eighteen days. And 57% of tickets were sold in the week before the show in the first four months of this year.
“Fans’ tastes and behaviours are shifting, seemingly faster than ever”, says a blog post summarising those trends. “The savviest venues and promoters are reacting quickly in this challenging environment”.
Eventbrite shared its market insights at the NIVA 24 Conference in New Orleans, having crunched data relating to the sale of tickets to US music events on its platform in the first four months of this year.
When live music returned following the COVID lockdowns, many promoters noted that - on average - fans were buying tickets closer to the date of the show. It was thought that the ongoing uncertainty posed by COVID, and the prospect that new lockdowns might cause further cancellations, was a key factor in that trend.
However, the trend has seemingly continued beyond that period of uncertainty. Some in-demand shows sell out as quickly as they ever did, of course, mainly big name artists playing big venues. But at the grassroots and in the mid-tier - where Eventbrite is more dominant as a ticketing platform - the late ticket purchase trend continues.
This is annoying for promoters, as it means they don’t know if a show will be a success until relatively late in the day. It also means that marketing for the gig needs to continue pretty much until the day of the performance.
It seems that promoters and venues are responding to this by creating shorter on-sale windows. Eventbrite says that, for sold-out shows, the average time between tickets going on sale and the day of the performance is 41% shorter than it was pre-pandemic.
Promoters and venues are also increasingly segmenting tickets into categories, for example general admission, early-bird and VIP. Eventbrite says that the average number of ticket types for sell-out shows is three.
VIP packages, which allow venues and promoters to generate extra income from superfans and/or more affluent concert-goers, are becoming ever more common. In fact, it reveals, “shows mentioning ‘VIP’ grew by 26% globally on the Eventbrite platform from 2023 to 2024”.