Ticket pricing is a complex process that involves multiple parties. When you buy a ticket to a concert, sporting event, or theater production, the price you pay is the result of decisions made by the event organizer, the venue, ticket sellers, and more. Figuring out exactly who has the most control over ticket prices isn’t always straightforward.
Some key questions when examining ticket pricing responsibility include:
- Who owns the event rights and venue?
- Who is distributing the tickets?
- What is the role of promoters and sponsors?
- How do market forces of supply and demand impact pricing?
Looking at how pricing works for different types of events can help shed light on where the pricing power lies.
Pricing for Live Music and Comedy Tours
When you buy a ticket to see a major live music or comedy tour, the artist and their management team typically have the most control over pricing. They set pricing in collaboration with concert promoters like Live Nation and AEG.
The artist’s management negotiates with promoters to determine how to price tickets for each city on the tour. They look at factors like:
- The artist’s past ticket sales and fan demand
- Venue size in each city
- Market differences between regions
- Compatibility with the artist’s brand image
Promoters have an incentive to keep prices reasonable to drive volume sales. But the artist’s team has final say on ticket pricing to align with the act’s goals, brand, and position in the industry.
Dynamic and Variable Pricing
In recent years, artists and promoters have increasingly used dynamic and variable ticket pricing on tours. This means they use data and algorithms to adjust pricing on the fly based on market demand.
For example, they may lower prices on seats that aren’t selling while raising prices on hot seats in high demand. This kind of demand-based pricing allows them to maximize revenue.
Ticketing platforms like Ticketmaster provide the technology to make dynamic pricing possible today. But the artist’s management decides whether and how to utilize it.
Secondary Market’s Impact
The secondary ticket market can also influence pricing. Third-party resellers may acquire tickets and relist them at higher prices on sites like StubHub based on demand. This can push up prices beyond the initial face values set by the artist and promoters.
Artists, promoters, and primary ticket sellers say inflated secondary market prices hurt fans. Some bands now use ticketing tactics like paperless tickets to make mass reselling harder. Still, secondary sellers continue influencing overall ticket pricing in the live music industry.
Pricing for Live Sports
Professional sports teams take the lead in setting ticket prices for games in their stadiums and arenas. NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB teams all price tickets based on similar market-based factors:
- Opposing team/matchup
- Day and time of game
- Season seat holder locations
- Overall team performance
Sports teams analyze ticket sales data from past seasons and current demand to optimize pricing. Popular teams like the Dallas Cowboys can charge more than small market teams. Rivalry and playoff games see price hikes.
There is often a wide range of prices within a venue for any given game. Club seats, luxury suites, and premium sections come at a premium. Teams typically underprice some sections to ensure sellouts and full arenas.
Dynamic pricing has also become more popular in pro sports. NFL teams like the San Francisco 49ers now use real-time pricing algorithms to adjust ticket costs across a season.
Role of Season Ticket Holders
Season ticket holders have big influence over baseline pricing for sports teams. Teams are hesitant to alienate their loyal season seat holders by raising prices too fast. Season ticket deals often include set pricing per seat that carries over year-to-year.
This means the growth of season ticket holder prices is gradual. They will pay well under per-game market rates. However, newer season seat holders tend to pay higher prices than longtime holders in the same section.
Secondary Market Impact
As with concerts, secondary resellers create major price spikes for high-demand games. Sites like StubHub see prices adjusted dynamically based on market demand. Teams don’t profit from secondary sales. But the higher prices can push fans towards season tickets as a more affordable option.
Some teams work with secondary sites to provide officially licensed resale marketplaces for fans. This allows teams to authorize and profit from secondary sales.
Pricing for Theater and Broadway
For touring theater productions and Broadway shows in major cities, pricing is jointly controlled by the productions, theater owners, and promoters.
National Tours
For a touring production, pricing is set collaboratively for each tour stop by:
- The theater company/production owners
- The local theater hosting the performances
- A regional promoter, if involved
They negotiate rates based on the theater size, historic ticket sales, and running costs. There is typically a contracted revenue or cost split between the production and local theater.
Broadway and West End
Broadway and West End shows work similarly. The theater owners, production owners, and promoters share control:
- Theaters own pricing at their venues.
- Productions want to recoup costs and maximize profits.
- Promoters distribute shows locally.
For long-running shows, they may periodically renegotiate pricing based on demand, reviews, awards won, and other evolving factors.
Dynamic Pricing
Some Broadway shows and national tours use dynamic pricing to adjust prices based on demand. The theaters provide the technology to enable this.
Variable pricing allows them to find the optimal price point for selling out each performance. But the human collaborators are still negotiating the pricing ranges and strategy.
Pricing Differences Across Events
Comparing pricing control between concert tours, pro sports, and theater reveals some key differences:
Concert Tours
- Artist management sets baseline pricing
- Promoters distribute and provide input
- Secondary market creates major price spikes
Pro Sports
- Teams control pricing for regular season
- Season ticket holders influence baseline prices
- Secondary sites like StubHub drive demand spikes
Theater Productions
- Joint control between productions, theaters, promoters
- Some dynamic pricing, but less demand volatility
- More stable pricing, less resale impact
While exact control differs, pricing is ultimately a joint decision in each case. No single party can unilaterally dictate prices. Venues, artists, promoters, and ticket sellers all influence final prices based on competing priorities.
Conclusion
Determining who controls ticket pricing is complicated by many parties being involved in the process. For major concerts, the artists and their management typically have the most sway over pricing. Sports teams make the pricing decisions for their home games. Theater productions involve collaboration between productions, local theaters, and promoters.
While one party may drive the initial pricing strategy, others are also at the table providing input. And the secondary ticket market demonstrates that brokers and resellers can ultimately undermine even the best-laid pricing plans based on demand. Modern pricing tools like dynamic and variable pricing also play a role in optimizing prices across parties.
The key takeaway is that multiple stakeholders are necessary to set ticket prices today. Pricing power depends on negotiating leverage between the parties, which shifts over time based on relative success. No single formula applies across all events. But it’s clear that teams, artists, venues, promoters, and more all share responsibility for the final prices fans pay.