Podcast Summary
The Indicator from Planet Money
Episode Title: Are Concert Tickets UNDER Priced?
Release Date: October 23, 2025
Duration: ~10 minutes
Host(s): Darian Woods and Wayland Wong
Overview
This episode examines the economics behind concert ticket prices, tackling the debate over whether tickets are actually underpriced, as claimed by Live Nation’s CEO, or if they are simply inaccessible due to bots and high markups on the secondary market. The hosts disentangle the roles played by various market actors—including artists, resellers, and ticketing platforms—and explore legislative efforts aimed at protecting true fans from exploitative price gouging.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Artist Perspective on Ticket Pricing
- Featured Artist: Molly Obamsuan, musician and composer.
- Molly reflects on her commitment to affordable ticket pricing, noting discomfort with pricing tickets at inaccessible levels:
- “I will never charge more than that. …I still want to be able to reach people who actually can’t afford a $150 ticket.” (A, 00:29)
2. The Industry View – Are Tickets Underpriced?
- Live Nation/Ticketmaster's View: CEO Michael Rapino argues that concert tickets remain “underpriced,” despite prices outpacing inflation—“concert tickets are underpriced and have been for a long time.” (C, 00:50)
- Example: Bruno Mars tickets listed at $850 for nosebleed seats in Las Vegas. (B, 01:07)
3. The Economics and Impact of Bots
- Ticket Bots and Resale Market Issues:
- Bots scoop up large numbers of tickets before fans can, resulting in much higher prices on secondary platforms.
- Lauren Wayne, State Theater (Portland, Maine), describes clear signs of bot activity:
- “If we see tickets on the secondary resale sites… before we go on sale, that’s obviously a red flag.” (A, 03:46)
- “If you see 500 tickets getting bought overnight… they’ve been purchased by bots.” (A, 04:15)
- The burden falls on venues to manually void bot purchases and refund fans—often resulting in fans arriving at shows with invalid tickets.
4. The Role of Big Platforms and Regulation
- Blame Game: Resellers, ticketing platforms (StubHub, SeatGeek), and even Ticketmaster are accused of not doing enough—or even benefiting from—bot activity and excessive resale profits.
- “Ticketmaster controls 80% or more of the major concert venue's primary ticketing market, but it also allows customers to resell tickets on its platform.” (B, 05:52)
- In September, the Federal Trade Commission sued Ticketmaster for allegedly coordinating with resellers and profiting from markup. Ticketmaster denies wrongdoing.
5. Economic Rationale for the Secondary Market
- Expert Insight: Alan Sorenson, economist (UW-Madison), explains mispricing due to artists’ deliberate choices to keep face values low, inadvertently fueling the secondary market.
- “Tickets are so often mispriced in the primary market… that leads to a really active resale market.” (E, 06:40)
- He emphasizes that the secondary market corrects the price to what people will actually pay:
- “If it sells in a free market for $250, then yes, that kind of is the market price, whether you like it or not.” (E, 07:23)
- Sorenson proposes that, in theory, artists could charge higher prices and reward attendees directly—e.g., “charge high prices for the concert, but then give out tons of awesome stuff to the people who actually come.” (E, 08:02)
6. Legislative Pushback: Maine’s Response
- Maine’s New Ticket Laws:
- Ban on bots and “spec tickets” (tickets listed for resale before actually being purchased).
- 10% cap on resale markup.
- Fans can report infractions directly to the state attorney general.
- Impact: Lauren Wayne’s venue has stopped having to manually scrub fraudulent transactions. However, she acknowledges the problem just moves elsewhere unless more states act:
- “They’re just going to move to the easiest market.” (A, 09:53)
7. Practical Advice for Fans
- The low-tech solution? Go directly to the box office to avoid fees and online headaches:
- “You can go in person to the box office.” (B, 10:06)
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
Artist Dilemma:
“I still want to be able to reach people who actually can’t afford a $150 ticket, you know, and I think it’s important to be able to choose your audience that way and not just like have your own success curate an audience that is of a specific income bracket.”
(A, 00:29) -
On Bots’ Impact:
“They’ve been purchased by bots who are not even people. It’s just technology just grabbing whatever they can.”
(A, 04:15) -
On Consumer Experience:
“There’s nothing sadder than having someone, you know, show up at their favorite artist and thinking that they’re going to get in and they don’t get in.”
(A, 04:49) -
Economic Realism:
“If it sells in an open free market for $250, then yes, that kind of is the market price, whether you like it or not.”
(E, 07:23) -
Potential Creative Solution:
“Someday maybe some artist will experiment with this where they will charge high prices for the concert, but then just give out tons of awesome stuff to the people who actually come.”
(E, 08:02)
Timestamps for Key Segments
- Artist perspective & inflexible pricing: 00:12–00:50
- Live Nation CEO’s ‘underpriced’ claim & ticket price realities: 00:50–01:24
- How bots undermine venues and fans (Maine case study): 03:21–04:49
- Platform complicity and legal responses: 05:18–06:27
- Economist’s market analysis & hypothetical solutions: 06:27–08:30
- State-level reforms (Maine’s law): 08:49–09:53
- How to avoid resale headaches: old-school box office: 10:00–10:08
Conclusion
This episode takes listeners inside the strange economics of concert ticketing, where artists, fans, venues, bots, and multi-billion-dollar corporations all have conflicting incentives. While some artists aim to keep shows affordable, structural mispricing, aggressive reselling, and uneven enforcement mean that too often, only the most determined (or wealthy) fans get seats. New legislative efforts like those in Maine show promise, but systemic change requires broader policy action and perhaps some radical new ideas from artists themselves.