Business & Finance

Consumers shift to last-minute buying as post-pandemic concert market cools

Soft demand and oversaturated touring schedules are prompting sports and music fans to delay ticket purchases in search of late-stage discounts.

Updated Aug 27, 2026 · 09:23 UTC1 reports

The short version

A growing number of live event attendees are waiting until the final days or hours before a show to buy tickets, capitalizing on soft demand and late inventory releases.
Data from SeatGeek reveals that more than a third of concert tickets and over two-thirds of sports tickets are purchased within a week of the event.
The trend is driving industry promoters to reallocate marketing budgets closer to event dates and rethink long-term sales timelines.

The average ticket price for the top 100 worldwide music tours reached $132.62 in 2025, representing a 36% increase from $96.17 in 2019.[Business Insider]
Data from SeatGeek indicates that 36% of concert tickets are bought in the week prior to an event, with 17% purchased in the final 24 hours.[Business Insider]
For sporting events, 68% of SeatGeek ticket purchases occur within a week of the game, and 38% happen within the last day.[Business Insider]
According to Jarred Arfa, head of global music at Independent Artist Group, soft ticket demand can lead sellers to lower prices or release held-back ticket inventory late in the timeline.[Business Insider]
Pascal Courty, an economics professor at the University of Victoria, states that average occupancy rates for live events typically hover between 70% and 80%.[Business Insider]

The exact total inventory of tickets for any given event is often obscured from consumers due to a lack of transparency in the primary and secondary ticketing markets.[Business Insider]