Sticker shock at the box office is colliding with a new kind of "golden ticket." Mega-acts including Coldplay, Olivia Rodrigo, and Charli XCX are quietly carving out limited $20 seats—sometimes less than the cost of a drink or two at the venue—as a nod to fans feeling priced out of live music, the Wall Street Journal reports. Coldplay's "Infinity Tickets" and Rodrigo's "Silver Star" seats are cheap but scarce. To thwart resellers, buyers have to pick their tickets up at the venue and they don't find out where they are sitting, or standing, until the day of the show, reports the Independent.
The discounts arrive as average ticket prices for top tours have climbed from about $84 a decade ago to more than $130, with blockbuster runs by stars like Beyoncé averaging well over $200 a seat before fees. Most of the price hikes came after 2021, when big tours resumed after the pandemic. While some in the industry question whether bargain tickets are driven by soft sales, others frame them as a deliberate trade-off: less revenue from a handful of seats in exchange for goodwill from cost-conscious fans.
Live Nation exec Jared Braverman tells the Journal that the number of $20 seats at concerts isn't "a ton in most cases, but it's enough to make the program meaningful." He says Olivia Rodrigo's program was inspired by Coldplay's plan to to make their concerts "more accessible and more affordable." Coldplay, in turn, were inspired by the Rolling Stones' older "Lucky Dip" program, which sells randomly assigned discounted seats.
- Justin Sosa, a Stones fan in Las Vegas, says he has scored Lucky Dip seats ranging from "the worst possible" to "a dream come true." "As a fan, you recognize the great gesture from the band," he tells the Journal. "The current market makes it tough for fans for a myriad of reasons, so this goes a long way."
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