Meet the man who spent $15K on Beyoncé tickets
Vox · L · trust 32/100
What it costs to be a superfan in the era of super-pricey shows.
Gift Beyoncé performs onstage during the Renaissance World Tour at Arrowhead Stadium on October 1, 2023, in Kansas City, Missouri. Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Parkwood Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic. From a fan perspective, seeing the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, attending the US Open and sipping on Honey Deuces , and getting a seat to Olivia Rodrigo’s Unraveled Tour and sing-screaming to “Stupid Song” couldn’t be more different. But they do have one thing in common: They’re all expensive.
Attending a live event has become a luxury purchase. Not that long ago in 2019, the average price of a concert ticket was $92 . Maybe your seats weren’t great, but you could afford to be in the room. Now the average price has risen to around $133 for face value, and you’re likely spending way more to see the biggest names in music and sports. And thanks to Live Nation’s grip on the music and sports ticketing industry, ever-increasing service fees , and features like dynamic pricing and a ruthless secondary resale market, it certainly feels like we’re not seeing any relief from these sky-high costs anytime soon.
For those who, say, can’t afford a $1,845 nosebleed ticket to see the Nova Knicks or a $2,000 Olivia Rodrigo resale seat, that means watching at home, or, if something isn’t eventually streamed, just missing out entirely.
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Looking at a seating map and seeing exactly how much ticket prices are changes your perception of the people lucky enough to attend. Like, what kind of person is spending that much money to sit in the very last row? How do they move through this universe with that much money to spend on bad seats? Is everyone secretly rich? Is this just a matter of fiscal irresponsibility? What is going on????
While Vox cannot speak to how everyone in attendance is paying for their tickets, we did talk to one person who was willing to share.
Enter: Craig, a 44-year-old living in the Bay Area, who makes roughly $180,000 per year. Craig spent more than $15,000 seeing Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour six times. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The price of going to see concerts and sporting events in the US is expensive, and it always feels like the next thing you’re going to is going to be even pricier. There are a few reasons for this:
I want to know, are you a secret heiress? A billionaire oligarch? How does one afford to see Beyoncé six times?
No, I’m not an heiress. I’m not unfortunately a billionaire — well, no, billionaires are bad, so don’t quote me on that. But it’s funny, one of the first things that comes to mind is my fandom for so many artists is expansive, but also I just spend money on certain things and not other things. My mom’s big motto in life was, “We’re making memories.” And so for me, I’m never going to regret going to Beyoncé six times. I’m going to regret only seeing her Renaissance tour twice.
One of my big regrets is not going to the Renaissance World Tour.
I realized a lot of it is — it’s the only place where you can really have this communal experience with people that are in your same delusional mindset. With Cowboy Carter, I was at the very first show in LA, and then I had planned to go to three shows. But then it just became this thing that got into my soul and was like, “I need to keep going.”
I don’t mind putting this into print or whatever, but I’m an addict, an alcoholic who’s been in recovery for decades, and so it’s easy for me to get hooked on things, but this is such a pure, very expensive way to have joy.
What was it about Cowboy Carter that compelled you to keep going? Was it because you knew Renaissance was amazing? Was it because you saw the movie ?
Yeah, I saw the movie four times, but I just kind of knew. And my big three are Björk, Fiona Apple, and Beyoncé. And so Björk is in Iceland most of the time, thank God. Fiona Apple as much as —
Wait, wait, thank God because of your wallet?
And Fiona Apple, I’ve seen her many times, but she just doesn’t tour. As much as I’d love her to, she just doesn’t. And I will see Robyn three times this year. I’ve seen Carly Rae Jepsen as many times as I can. But with Beyoncé, it’s like I know there’s a limited amount of how much she’s going to be doing what she’s doing. And with Act III at some point coming up, there’s a real push that I need to get as much as I can. And it sounds greedy, but I don’t feel bad taking up a ticket or space, when I enjoy it as much as I do.
Take me through Cowboy Carter. You said you were going to initially see it three times.
You ended up seeing it how many times? Six?
Take me through that mentality — from three, how’d that balloon six?
I knew that I was going to see the first three shows. I had planned with a boyfriend who’s now an ex that was part of this whole process. I was going to go to the first show, the second show, and the third show, and then I was going to be done. But I knew in the back of my mind that I wasn’t probably done. And it’s so funny because my first outfit was pretty homegrown, a just-barely-put-together cowboy hat that I bought at the show. And then by the time I was at the fifth and the sixth show, I had a custom-made gold outfit.
It became this thing where I can’t quite explain how I ended up going to six shows other than it was this snowball rolling downhill.
What kind of tickets did you have? Were they all the same?
I was in the section right by the catwalk. So it was like, Oh shit, I have to go do this again in the same spot . What I would’ve done differently is I would’ve seen it from way up above. I would’ve seen it from cheaper seats.
I mean, honestly,…
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