Study Reveals When Concert Tickets Are Cheapest to Purchase

Buying concert tickets can be a really nerve-wracking experience, especially when it's an artist you're desperately trying to see. Prices are high and bots are ruthless, but fortunately, a new study has revealed when concert tickets are actually the cheapest to purchase from resale sites.

We've all been there. You have the Ticketmaster page pulled up, your card information is entered and you're ready to go… but then you get put into a queue. By the time you've "entered the room," all of the tickets are either gone or have somehow already been re-uploaded in the resale category for a ridiculous price that's way higher than what the face value is. So you check out StubHub and other resale sites and debate whether you should take the plunge on that overpriced ticket, or if you should wait it out.

Finance Buzz says to wait it out.

They gathered data from the resale market for the current top touring acts and uncovered what thousands of people paid for particular events. They analyzed over 22,000 ticket sales for artists such as Paul McCartney, The Eagles, Elton John, Billy Joel, Chris Stapleton, Luke Combs, Billie Eilish and a few others. The shows took place between April 9 and May 24 of this year.

The main findings imply that buying tickets from resale sites the day of the show is when they're the absolute cheapest — in fact, tickets were 33 percept cheaper on the day of the concert than on average, and 27 percent cheaper the day before the concert than on average.

Most music fans purchase tickets roughly three months before the event takes place, according to the report. Therefore, waiting until the event is just a day away or even that night would save them a decent amount of money, especially when you take the service fees and tax into account.

Fortunately, many already know this tactic. The findings further noted that 24 percent of ticket purchases from the secondary market take place within a week before the concert.

But what about music festivals? Finance Buzz also looked at the sales of over 18,000 multi-day music festival passes purchased on the secondary market, and the main festivals were BottleRock, both weekends of Coachella, Shaky Knees and a few others that all took place between April 8 and May 29 of 2022. The evidence showed that these passes were 30 percent cheaper 13 days prior to the start of the festival and 24 percent cheaper 12 days prior.

Moral of the story — wait it out! See some graphs below, and check out the full study here.