Report
The OnStage Ticket Price Index: what 98,432 price snapshots say about live-event pricing
Since August 9, 2026, OnStage has recorded 98,432 price snapshots across 9,829 live events in 11 countries — the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Poland. Of those events, 9,623 have a multi-point time series: at least two snapshots of the same event, which is what lets us say how a price actually moved rather than guess. This report is the first public cut of that dataset. We intend to update it monthly.
What we track and how
For every event in our catalog we record the advertised entry price — the lowest listed ticket price at the primary seller, before per-order fees. A snapshot is written in two situations: whenever the listed price changes, and on a periodic six-hour cycle regardless of change. Prices are stored in the seller's local currency and are never converted; a German average is in euros, a US average in dollars, and we do not mix them.
Three rules keep the aggregates honest:
- Cohort-correct comparisons. When we report a price increase, we compare an event only to itself — first snapshot against last snapshot of the same event. We never compare the average of one basket of events in August to a different basket in October.
- Minimum sample thresholds. A market-plus-genre average is published only with at least 10 priced events behind it; a city average only with at least 15. Cells below threshold are withheld, not padded.
- Entry price only. We track the cheapest listed ticket, not an average across tiers. It is the number a fan actually sees first, and it is comparable across venues of very different sizes.
Finding 1: 88% of entry prices never moved — and more floors fell than rose
The most surprising result of two months of tracking is how still the entry price is — and which way it leans when it does move. To measure movement cleanly we built a cohort of 7,684 events with at least three price snapshots and an entry price above $10, tracked August–October 2026, and compared each event's last observed floor against its first. The result: 6,762 events — 88.0% — ended exactly where they started. Of the rest, 528 floors fell (6.9%) and 394 rose (5.1%). At the entry price, a falling floor is more common than a rising one.
But the two tails are not symmetrical in violence. When the floor rises, it can move hard. The largest increase among tracked events currently on sale belongs to Tritonal, a US Dance/Electronic show whose cheapest ticket went from $24.95 at our first snapshot to $100.70 at our last — a 303.6% increase. A four-band alternative bill headlined by The Skies Revolt rose 138.0% ($17.00 to $40.46). The largest increases among published, upcoming events in our catalog:
| Event | Market | Genre | First | Last | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tritonal | US | Dance/Electronic | $24.95 | $100.70 | +303.6% |
| The Skies Revolt + Still.Teddy + Glassfield + From The Fleet | US | Alternative | $17.00 | $40.46 | +138.0% |
| Justin Silva | US | — | $39.83 | $63.82 | +60.2% |
| Stop. Drop. Rewind w/ Hayloft | US | Alternative | $16.19 | $23.15 | +43.0% |
| LØLØ, Mylie Taylor | US | Pop | $23.97 | $33.24 | +38.7% |
| Bobby Bare Jr. of Guided By Voices | US | Rock | $23.25 | $31.90 | +37.2% |
| Day Out With Thomas, Thomas & Friends | US | Fairs & Festivals | $25.85 | $31.90 | +23.4% |
| IWC Fall Harvest | US | — | $32.39 | $39.60 | +22.3% |
| Mo Lowda & The Humble w/ Surf Hat | US | Rock | $34.48 | $41.26 | +19.7% |
| Connor Bracken & The Mother Leeds Band (3-band bill) | US | Rock | $12.19 | $13.22 | +8.4% |
| Adam Paddock | US | Alternative | $18.78 | $20.07 | +6.9% |
| The Breaks | US | Alternative | $42.05 | $44.83 | +6.6% |
| Scenic NYC Presents: Panopticon, Catharsis | US | Metal | $32.92 | $33.44 | +1.6% |
| Nekrogoblikon with Rivers of Nihil & Cyborg Octopus | CA | Metal | C$51.78 | C$52.29 | +1.0% |
| Hiromi: The Trio Project | US | Jazz | $45.90 | $46.08 | +0.4% |
Twenty-three of the 25 top risers are US events; the remaining two are Canadian. We read this as a signature of demand-responsive ("dynamic") pricing and tier exhaustion being far more common in the North American primary market than in the European markets we track — a hypothesis we will be able to test properly as our European samples grow.
Finding 2: genre is a price tier
Averaging current entry prices across US events (minimum 10 events per genre), the spread between the most and least expensive genre is a factor of 2.2:
| Genre (US) | Events (n) | Avg. entry price |
|---|---|---|
| Jazz | 41 | $34.90 |
| Hip-Hop/Rap | 12 | $30.29 |
| Metal | 10 | $28.64 |
| Comedy | 31 | $24.53 |
| Alternative | 47 | $24.30 |
| Rock | 67 | $24.26 |
| Pop | 20 | $23.54 |
| No genre label | 69 | $22.51 |
| Folk | 18 | $20.55 |
| Blues | 10 | $19.23 |
| Country | 40 | $17.27 |
| Other | 15 | $16.73 |
| Dance/Electronic | 11 | $15.68 |
Jazz is the most expensive door in America at an average $34.90 entry price, followed by Hip-Hop/Rap ($30.29) and Metal ($28.64). Dance/Electronic is the cheapest at $15.68 — which makes it notable that the single biggest price spike among tracked events currently on sale (Tritonal, +303.6%) came from the cheapest genre. Low entry prices appear to be where aggressive repricing has the most room to run.
Finding 3: city averages — a $11 gap inside the US
Five cities currently clear our 15-event threshold:
| City | Market | Events (n) | Avg. entry price |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Orleans | US | 19 | $29.55 |
| New York | US | 36 | $29.17 |
| Toronto | CA | 21 | C$22.45 |
| Chicago | US | 15 | $21.56 |
| Nashville | US | 19 | $18.47 |
New Orleans ($29.55) and New York ($29.17) are effectively tied at the top. Nashville, despite — or because of — being the densest live-music city in the sample, has the cheapest average door at $18.47, consistent with its Country-heavy mix (US Country averages $17.27). The gap between the most and least expensive US city is $11.08, or about 60%.
What we deliberately do not publish (yet)
Our raw data contains an obvious-looking curve: average entry price bucketed by weeks until the event, which drifts from $27.79 at eight weeks out down to $23.55 in event week. Published naively, it would "show" that prices fall as the show approaches. We do not publish it as a finding, because it is composition-biased: each bucket contains a different mix of events, and the near-term bucket is dominated by small, cheap, short-horizon shows. It measures what kind of events sit at each distance, not what happens to any given ticket. The cohort-correct view (Finding 1) is the honest one. The same discipline applies to our European markets: UK, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Australian, Irish and New Zealand cells have not yet crossed our sample thresholds, so no averages are published for them in this edition.
Coverage and limits
- Window: August 9 – October 7, 2026. Two months is enough to detect repricing, not to establish seasonality.
- Primary-market listed prices only; no resale-market prices and no per-order fees.
- "First snapshot" means first observed by us, not the on-sale price; some events were already on sale before tracking began.
- Published aggregates in this edition cover the US and Canada; all 11 markets are tracked and will be added as thresholds are met.
Cite this data
All aggregates in the OnStage Ticket Price Index are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license. You are free to reproduce the numbers, tables and findings — including commercially — with attribution to "OnStage Ticket Price Index" and a link to https://onstage365.com/journal/ticket-price-index. Journalists and researchers who need a cut we have not published (a specific market, genre, city or time window) can request it at hello@onstage365.com; if the sample clears our thresholds, we will run it.
Methodology note
Based on 98,432 price snapshots across 9,829 tracked events (9,623 with multi-point series) collected by OnStage between August 9 and October 7, 2026. Snapshots are recorded on price change and on a six-hour periodic cycle. Averages use current entry prices with minimum samples of 10 events (market×genre) and 15 events (city). Movement statistics (rose/fell/flat) compare each event only to itself, first to last snapshot, over a cohort of 7,684 events with at least three price snapshots and an entry price above $10; the figure of 9,623 events with multi-point series describes dataset size only and is never used as a rise-rate denominator.