Beyonce tickets selling below face on the secondary market
Beyoncé is back on tour.
Last time she was on tour, Jay-Z ate at one of my neighborhood locals.
That was a story for a day or two.
So much for DC being a big town.
The Cowboy Carter Tour started last week in Los Angeles selling 217,000 tickets for her 5 nights at So-Fi Stadium.
That’s a great showing!
A hit for So-Fi Stadium.
The issue that people have been talking about is different.
One story that has been circulating in the media and on social media is that resale prices are $60 or below for the opening nights of the tour.
Is that a good thing?
Is it a bad thing?
That’s where the conversation gets interesting for me.
Look at this exchange between Scott Friedman and Scott Lott.
You may say, Scott Friedman is right.
Prices dropping on the secondary market are harmful to Beyoncé’s brand.
You may agree with Scott Lott’s take that it doesn’t matter what tickets are going for on the secondary market because Queen B got her bag.
And…” Screw those brokers.”
The real answer needs a bit of nuance.
The nuance begins by understanding what success looks like.
Beyoncé went out on a huge tour in 2023.
The Renaissance World Tour played 56 shows, sold 2.78 million tickets, and made $579.8 million at the box office.
A smash.
91% of fans said they’d go again.
80% said the experience was worth it.
Great numbers.
Why are we seeing tickets popping up on the secondary market from the start of the tour?
Like any analysis, we will never know with complete certainty.
However, we do know a few factors that set the stage for these secondary market prices.
First, buyer fatigue.
Beyoncé’s last tour only ended in October 2023.
Beyonce has diehards. They will go to multiple shows.
Enough to fill a 50,000-seat football stadium for 5 nights?
Maybe not.
Second, economic uncertainty.
Presales for the Cowboy Carter Tour started on February 11th, 2025.
Yes. There was political uncertainty at the start of the year.
That would be present during any presidential transition.
It isn’t party or candidate specific.
It is something that is built into the system.
People hold off on big decisions because they want to see what happens.
That counts as economic uncertainty, but I wouldn’t call it a major impact.
There were signs of economic challenges that would impact ticket sales, such as the increase in consumer debt and credit card delinquencies.
That’s something I pay more attention to.
Three, the tight window between on-sale and shows.
The on-sales started in February.
Shows started in May.
That’s a short window for people to plan out tickets and travel.
Especially with so many big tours happening already.
Are any of these the reason for cheap tickets?
No.
But they are important background to Scott Friedman’s idea.
Does price decay on the secondary market harm Beyoncé’s brand?
The simple answer is yes.
100%.
No doubt about it.
Why?
Three big reasons stand out.
One, perception is reality.
Two, #PaysToWait is real.
Three, brand equity.
Let me explain.
Perception is reality.
In my classes, I tell people that a brand is mostly intangible.
This means it is a feeling, an impression stamped on a few brain cells in your market’s head.
You don’t control what they think or feel.
You can influence their feelings.
This is the entire job of brand management.
You work to create the conditions where the two or three things you want people to think about you are the things they think about you.
How do you do this?
It is everything you do.
But a few things stand out like logos, smells, sounds, and your pricing.
In the case of Beyonce’s tickets selling below face, it feeds into a narrative that this isn’t a “hot ticket.”
That perception can slowly bleed into feelings about the quality of the show and Beyoncé as an artist.
How does this occur?
Slowly at first.
Then, all at once.
Brand destruction can happen in the snap of a finger.
Or it can happen slowly when you aren’t paying attention.
Price erosion feeds the #PaysToWait beast.
#PaysToWait is real.
#PaysToWait can often be the smartest move for a ticket buyer.
Why?
Two reasons stand out.
One, incentives.
People are forced to buy tickets very early.
Life can get in the way.
This means people might not be able to attend shows.
It might mean friends can’t make the show.
Lots of things can get in the way.
So, people must sell tickets.
The further away the show, the more things that can happen.
Two, brokers and sneaker kids.
The Discord culture for suggesting shows to buy seems like a great scam to get in on.
You don’t have to have any expertise.
I’m sure there are some good suggestions, but too many of them boil down to “Buy Taylor Swift tickets. It is a good buy.”
What does this mean?
It means that a reseller is subsidizing a lot of nights out because when they buy up tickets to shows and can’t sell them, prices drop, so they can get something rather than eating the entire purchase price.
Last summer, I went to see Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service for $5…thank you!
Kidding aside, a ticket that isn’t “hot” sees prices fall fast and dramatically.
Why is this Beyoncé’s problem?
One, if a show “sells out” and tickets are listed high on the secondary market, fans might not buy.
This changes a fan’s behavior.
A few possible things can happen.
A fan might decide that Beyoncé’s show isn’t for them because the tickets are too expensive.
A fan might decide to wait because the ticket prices might fall.
The fan finds something else to do.
All these considerations reinforce each other.
You don’t buy at on-sale because the prices are high.
You find something else to do.
You forget about the show.
Other things get in the way.
There are now fewer potential buyers in the market.
Prices fall.
People buying on price continue to wait.
It is a game of chicken.
People who have already moved on aren’t coming back into the buying funnel.
This drives the prices down further.
On and on it goes until #PaysToWait creates an environment where you are getting in for pennies on the dollar.
Plus, tickets go unused.
And you are trained to rarely or never buy at on-sale ever again.
Finally, brand equity.
Brand equity works two ways.
Good things build your brand up.
Bad things tear your brand down.
The secret is that the good stuff adds up slowly. But the bad stuff can tear your brand down in a second.
Think about it like one of those reality TV show games where the contestants must fill up the big vat of water with a tablespoon.
That’s building brand equity.
Now, think about the way someone sits on the bench of a dunk tank, taunting the ball thrower until suddenly hits the lever, dumping the smart ass into the tub of cold water.
That’s tearing down your brand equity.
You are a smart ass, riding high, until you aren’t.
Then you are looking around asking people, “What just happened?”
In Beyonce’s case, she has built up some incredible brand equity over the years with bangers such as:
- “Say My Name” and “Bootylicious” with Destiny’s Child
- “Crazy in Love”
- “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”
- Voicing Nala and Mufasa in The Lion King.
And never forget, her first movie role as Foxxy Cleopatra in Austin Powers in Goldmember.
Fans rave about her shows.
She’s got credit in the bank.
She’s been building that up for decades.
You’d think she was unimpeachable.
Social media gives people a voice.
You can see that with the pictures of empty seats at the shows in LA.
You can see that with the conversation about tickets below face value.
All of this contributes to the impression that Beyoncé isn’t a “must see”.
At first, it is a nuisance.
Noise.
Eventually, it becomes a chorus telling their buddies to wait to buy tickets.
It undermines the premium idea of seeing Beyonce because she is “Queen B”.
She might still be “Queen B”, but not managing the perception makes it easy for her to turn into Elvis playing Vegas.
How does everything tie together?
First, you must understand that no matter who you are as a team, a performer, a building, or an event, you are a brand.
This means that a big part of what makes you “hot” or not is intangible.
The bad thing is you don’t get to tell people what to think about you.
The good thing is that you can manage how people see you.
Bob Dylan has done that extremely well through the years by not giving many interviews, keeping an enigmatic image built up around him.
You can also see how quickly the façade falls apart in the example of Dave Grohl.
Dave went from the nicest guy in rock to someone sketchy in a minute or less when the news broke about the daughter he had outside of his marriage.
You must know the two or three things you want people to think about when they think about.
Then, sell that message every day.
Two, recognize that everything matters.
Just selling out your tickets or shouting “sell out” doesn’t mean anything today.
A number I teach people to use is “scan through rate”.
This gives you a better number to use.
It is the percentage of tickets sold times the percentage of tickets used.
This tells you a more complete story.
This matters because a ticket that went on sale at $200 but is available for $50 tells a story that you may not like.
It is a story that undermines your brand, your pricing power, and the fan experience.
Selling the ticket isn’t enough.
Getting people in the door is just as important because everything counts.
How does this apply practically?
- You don’t want to see cheap tickets on the secondary market.
- You don’t want to discount.
- You want to incentivize people to arrive early.
- You want to make sure that every touchpoint you can control is as good as possible.
Why?
Because the good stuff adds to the mystique.
The bad stuff undermines you.
Never forget, the little things are often more important than the big ones.
So go that little bit more.
Third, you must always keep in mind that your fans live in a different world than you do.
The way I teach this in my consulting practice is “You are not the customer. Your POV isn’t important. In fact, it is probably dangerous.”
Always keep this in mind.
You are too close to the event.
You know things about a performance or an event that your customers don’t.
At the same time, your profit or issues aren’t your fans’ problem.
They won’t care.
Nor should they.
So…which Scott is right?
I won’t go there.
What I will say is that the conversation they had highlights the truth.
That is that you must make decisions that fit into your strategy.
Maybe clearing the decks and having tons of cheap tickets on the secondary market is good for you because you don’t care if you make your money.
If that is your POV, go for it.
Just recognize that this is often just a short-term answer.
At the same time, if you make all decisions based on long term brand implications, you can find yourself never getting to that hoped for future.
I find that the best answers are somewhere in the middle.
What about you?
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