Live Music Is Bigger Than Ever, So Why Are Festivals Canceling?

Back in February, Live Nation Entertainment published a glowing year-end report touting rising attendance, increased ticket sales and soaring revenue for live music throughout 2023. Those numbers suggested the party was poised to continue in 2024, but recent Bloomberg findings offer a bleaker assessment.

The Bloomberg report details how, so far this year, major festivals including Coachella — set for the weekends of April 12-14 and April 19-21 — have yet to sell out, while others have flat-out canceled.

The main culprits, as is the case throughout the entertainment industry, are rising costs for organizers, which translates to higher ticket prices, and consumer belt tightening due to post-pandemic inflation.

Bloomberg found that 10 major music festivals, including multi-decade standbys and those with AAA headliners, have canceled their 2024 plans so far. But Live Nation, whose stock just recently hit a 52-week high, took the opportunity to reiterate its optimism about the business in the article: “It’s common for a few events to fluctuate or fall off for a variety of reasons, so there’s always a few of those anecdotes. But on a macro level, the live music business is more robust than ever.”

“Anecdotes” or not, available data on the state of live music backs up Live Nation’s stance — to an extent. Morgan Stanley’s “Audio Entertainment Survey” for 2023, for instance, found that audience attendance for live events, particularly music festivals, had reached or even exceeded pre-pandemic levels in 2023.

Variety Intelligence Platform, as noted in “Peak Performance," a January special report on the live music business, that attendance and ticket sales were both up by a wide margin in 2023.

However, when asked about factors that prevented them from attending live events, survey respondents said high ticket prices and exorbitant fees were the top two deterrents. When it came to music festivals, about half of those questioned wouldn’t spend more than $200 on tickets.

Based on these numbers, both Bloomberg and Live Nation are half-right: More people than ever want to go to concerts, but rising prices are stopping many from taking the plunge. As a result, the crowded music festival herd is thinning, and the survivors are finding fewer takers.

Time will tell how this reality impacts the industry in 2024, but in the meantime, there are GA tickets for Coachella’s second weekend starting at a cool $499 (plus fees).

Now dig deeper with a VIP+ special report ...