Price trends · Preliminary · Updated Oct 7, 2026
Early Concert Ticket Price Trends: How Prices Move Before the Show
Median starting prices of the concerts on sale by how far away the show is, and how the prices of the same concerts moved while we watched them.
Dataset: 55,714 tracked concerts · 53,531 with 2+ recorded prices · 395,049 historical price records.
What a ticket starts at, by how far away the concert is
Every concert on sale is placed in a bucket by the number of whole days until the show, and each bucket is summarised by the median of the concerts’ current starting prices (the lowest listed ticket of each concert).
This chart compares different concerts currently on sale. It shows how starting prices differ across lead-time buckets in the current snapshot. It does not show what happens to the same concert as its date approaches: the far-off buckets hold more of the tours announced early, the near ones more of the club shows.
Which way prices moved while we watched
This chart follows the same concerts over time. For every upcoming concert with at least two recorded prices we compare its last recorded starting price with its first, and place it in the bucket it was in when that first price was recorded. A second record means the listing changed — its starting price, its highest listed ticket, or both — so some of these concerts kept the same starting price throughout.
A median near zero can hide an uneven distribution of increases and decreases. The balance of concerts that rose against those that fell provides the context the median alone can hide.
| Lead time | On sale | Median starting price | Followed | Median change | Net rising | Rose | Fell | Flat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Less than 1 week out | 4,239 | $74.75 | 24 | 0.00% | -29.2% | 12.5% | 41.7% | 45.8% |
| 1–4 weeks out | 12,386 | $73.60 | 8,439 | +1.61% | +21.9% | 57.5% | 35.6% | 6.9% |
| 1–3 months out | 18,357 | $81.65 | 24,747 | +1.52% | +29.2% | 59.9% | 30.7% | 9.4% |
| 3–6 months out | 7,890 | $87.40 | 7,593 | +1.37% | +24.8% | 58.3% | 33.5% | 8.1% |
| More than 6 months out | 3,516 | $90.85 | 4,280 | +1.41% | +26.4% | 59.3% | 32.9% | 7.8% |
How to read this
Two different questions sit behind “when should I buy”. The first is what concerts on sale right now cost depending on how far off they are — that is the snapshot, and it mixes different artists, venues and cities, so it says as much about which shows are scheduled far ahead as about timing.
The second is what happens to the same concert over time. The movement chart is the more relevant measure for understanding how the same concerts changed during our observation window, because it compares each concert only with itself. A median near zero can hide an uneven distribution of increases and decreases, so the rose-versus-fell balance provides additional context. Neither chart is a recommendation to buy earlier or later.
Methodology
- Source: the TicketNetwork affiliate product feed — one resale marketplace — imported by ConcertGrid on a schedule; the analysis is ConcertGrid’s own.
- Sample: the snapshot covers the 46,388 concerts on sale with a starting price; the movement analysis covers the 45,083 upcoming concerts with at least two recorded prices. The dataset holds 395,049 historical price records across 55,714 tracked concerts: a record is written when a concert first appears and whenever its starting or highest listed price changes, not on every check.
- Window: Sep 21 – Oct 7, 2026 (16 days).
- Lead time: whole days until the concert starts, from its start time in UTC — Less than 1 week out: 0–6 days; 1–4 weeks out: 7–29 days; 1–3 months out: 30–89 days; 3–6 months out: 90–179 days; More than 6 months out: 180 days or more. The snapshot counts from our latest calculation, the movement analysis from when a concert’s first price was recorded. Concerts without a reliable start time are left out.
- Measure: the starting price — the lowest listed ticket — per concert, in US dollars, before fees and taxes.
Movement is
(last − first) / firstover the concert’s recorded prices; a change within ±0.5% counts as flat, and a record without a price is skipped. - Limitations: our observation window covers days, not months. These results describe what happened during this window and cannot yet establish whether buying at a particular number of weeks before a concert is consistently cheaper. The buckets also differ in composition — stadium tours are announced earlier than club shows.
For journalists
The figures on this page may be reproduced with attribution to ConcertGrid and a link. This study is preliminary and currently covers Sep 21 – Oct 7, 2026. The underlying series is rebuilt on every feed import, so cite the date you read it. For the aggregate series behind it, see the price index.