The ‘funflation’ economy is dying as a ‘hard pass’ consumer attitude takes over and major artists cancel concert tours

For the past few years, live music has enjoyed an explosive post-pandemic resurgence as “revenge spending” fans itch to return to post-pandemic concert venues, paying top dollar for massive stadium tours like the tour Taylor Swift’s Eras and Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour. .

But a recent wave of tour cancellations and changes by popular artists indicate that consumers’ appetite for live music may be slowing.

On Friday, Live Nation announced that Jennifer Lopez was canceling her This Is Me…Live tour to spend more time with her family, a week after the Black Keys said they were canceling an arena tour planned for this fall in favor of smaller countries. , even after the single from their new album reached number one BillboardMarch Alternative Airplay Chart.

The announcements are the latest signs that at least one aspect of “funflation,” or the economy that emerged in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic — when consumers eager to make up for missed experiences boosted demand for things like flights and concert tickets – is not as strong as it was last year.

Jarred Arfa, head of global music at tour agency Independent Artist Group, said he believes the current concert environment is less a slowdown than a return to a pre-pandemic atmosphere where “there are a lot of winners, but not everything is winning. . “

“Traffic is catching up a little bit, where you still have so many artists on the road and people have already seen them,” Arfa said. wealth. “Some of that novelty factor after COVID is not there anymore.”

One obvious factor is consumer fatigue with inflated costs. Since the world emerged from pandemic lockdowns, the price of concert tickets has soared. According to music trade publication Pollstar, the average ticket price for a Top 100 music tour between 2019 and 2023 rose at a rate that well outpaced inflation, rising from $91.18 to $122.84.

“The days when there was enough demand to sell out top dollar arenas just aren’t there in this live event economy,” Dave Clark, editor of Entertainment Industry Tracker. ticket news, said in an interview with NBC News.

“People are seeing some of the prices they’re asking for and just saying, ‘Hard pass.'”

Arfa also said there are more artists touring now than in the past – and not just because of the time off during the lockdown. An important factor is the age of streaming, in which touring generates much better earnings for artists than what they make from streaming. But since fans’ time and their wallets have run out, that ultimately translates into a smaller piece of the pie for some performers.

“You have people who normally might have left their tours… who are now coming back again,” Arfa said. “Maybe they would have taken a few years off, but they took those years off from COVID.”

“Traffic is still probably a little higher than it would normally be,” he added.

It’s not just tournaments that are winding down. The first weekend for Coachella, the top-grossing festival in North America, didn’t sell out for nearly a month. That’s far longer than 2023 or 2022, when both weekends sold out in about 40 minutes after a two-year pandemic hiatus. On the day the 2024 festival opened, Billboard reported that approximately 80% of the 250,000 tickets had been sold.

Ticketmaster was among the biggest beneficiaries of the “revenge spending” phenomenon. Its parent, Live Nation, reported its biggest year ever in 2023 before the DOJ sued the company in May, alleging it violated antitrust laws. After megahits by Taylor Swift and Beyoncé last year, the ticketing giant reported a $10 billion increase in total revenue, while concert attendance rose 20%.

But there are early signs that growth may slow in 2024. Last week, Axios reported that resale prices for summer concert tickets are down about 17% (or an average of $45 per ticket) from last year, citing data from SeatGeek. In May, the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics reported that April prices for movie and concert tickets rose 3.4% from a year earlier, the slowest increase since 2021.

Additionally, in addition to the DOJ lawsuit, concert cancellations, and popular outrage, Ticketmaster is also dealing with a data breach affecting millions of customers.

In a statement, Ticketmaster parent Live Nation said, “Overall market data shows that demand is strong – sales are up from last year with over 100 million tickets sold, even with fewer major stadium shows that will visit in 2024.” The company added that concert cancellation rates this year were around 4%, on par with last year.

For the biggest artists on tour this summer — Olivia Rodrigo, Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan — there’s still plenty of demand. The average resale price on SeatGeek for Rodgrigo’s “Guts” tour is $571, according to Axios. But even that’s a far cry from the astronomical resale prices posted for the Eras Tour last summer, which ran into the thousands.

“At the mega-maturity level, I think there may be a little less this year,” said Arfa. “Some artists automatically come out every two years and think they’re bulletproof. And it’s not like that. Not everyone can be Taylor and Beyoncé.”

This story originally appeared on Fortune.com