Who is the most expensive band to see in concert?
Today’s Top Ten Most Expensive Live Bands
It is felt that when one gets the opportunity to watch their favorite musician or band perform live in concert, it can be one of the most remarkable feelings of their life. Nevertheless, getting tickets for concerts is not easy, and especially with the favorite artists, tickets are not cheap anymore. Some bands are infamous for overpriced shows, with fans spending millions on the bands they love to listen to. However, which musician or group has the highest ticket price in the market right now?
As far as the chronological list of the longest tours is concerned, the British rock group The Rolling Stones holds the honorable title of having been on tour for more than 60 years. It costs about $226 to purchase an average Rolling Stones ticket today. That may not seem too far-fetched when we consider other celebrities and superstars nowadays. But when extrapolated over time and considering the number of concerts a band like this is likely to play throughout its existence, the totals become positively astronomical.
For instance, during their tour dubbed ‘A Bigger Bang Tour’, The Rolling Stones did 138 shows across different continents, namely North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, in a span of two years (2005–2007) to support their new album. Several sources of income were identified, but the biggest income sources included ticket sales, videos and souvenirs, recording, and sales of bootleg T-shirts and videos, which earned the group a total gross revenue of $558 million from the almost two-year tour, which at one point was the highest-earning tour ever. Another fifty-and-counting tour from 2012 to 2013 included 30 shows and a turnover of $40 million. I have to admit that ticket prices have slightly increased over the years due to factors like inflation and popularity, but The Rolling Stones are still among the rock legends that can easily attract a hefty price for their concert tickets.
Mick Jagger and his entourage are without a doubt rock music legends when it comes to live performances. Apart from the sheer number of songs performed, critics and audiences have applauded The Rolling Stones concert extravaganzas as providing an enormous amount of value, complete with such essential ingredients as popular hits, energetic visuals, guest performers, and Mick Jagger as the charismatic singer and showman at the Seventh Heaven stage at the age of seventy-seven. Of course, the major factor regarding their shows these days is the fact that they are incredibly rare and exclusive.
In recent years, some shrinking tours of as few as twelve to fifteen dates in the United States and playing to arenas can ask for more than $1 million per date at capacity. To see Iron Maiden live for the 2019 No Filter Tour, one had to pay around $1,500 for field box seats near the B-stage, while the cheapest seats were way over $100. They have squandered $5,000 to $15,000 on what might be referred to as super-fan VIP bundles. The Stones also perform only in stadiums and sometimes occasionally at shock sites to cater to their devoted audiences.
Aside from being proud to be the greatest rock n roll show on the face of the earth, The Rolling Stones hold more space than any other contemporary act today, be it pop idols like Taylor Swift. They may at some point equal their ticket sales during such vigorous world tours as Swift is known to embark on. However, Beyoncé, U2, Guns N’ Roses, and other budding heritage acts have copied exactly the Stones’ template of only playing very select live dates and shows to extract massive revenues from every opportunity late in their careers.
Of course, Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, and any legacy artists with residencies in locations such as Las Vegas also sell a significant amount. But even the Eagles got back together for that chart-destroying, record-shattering Hell Freezes Over, and that could only muster up the sales that the Stones have been racking up deep into their sixth decade of existence. Most of that is attributable to sound business strategies of tightening the belt, and then coming back aggressively when the environment favored them as the topmost priority.
Now, despite having to reschedule the tour from early 2020 due to Mick Jagger’s health problems and the death of drummer Charlie Watts, their Sixty tour continues, and the band recently invited other music legends like Dave Grohl and Paul McCartney to join them. Indeed, the current self-proclaimed ‘greatest rock n roll band ever’ band does not seem to have its moneymaking and artistic machine slowed down in any way.
To tell the truth, with the packages and suite hospitality that overshadow many Marquee sports franchises, there are very few other beloved bands who can even nearly match The Rolling Stones's live draw on pure ticket price now, or perhaps ever. Their well-proven scarcity theory in the provision of value supports unmatched revenues in the sunset of rock’s first billion-dollar band. The same influential formula also confirms their eternal place as the most expensive band to witness on stage before they vanish into mere folklore.
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