2023 is shaping up to have some of the biggest names in music tour around the country– Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Lizzo, Ed Sheeran, and many, many more all hit the road this year. Ready to score your seats? You’ll want to read on to learn about which services charge the highest fees.
To determine the ticket sites that you’ll pay the most in fees, Sell Easy collected cost data for upcoming tours and sporting events on four major ticketing websites (Ticketmaster, StubHub, Vivid Seats, and SeatGeek). The performers were selected based on a list of 2023 touring artists who had concerts in different parts of the country. The cities and venues were kept consistent where possible. The sports included were based on the best teams from each league (according to each league’s standings as of 12/1/22). Ticket face value and fee data were pulled for two tickets for each event in the study (one low-cost option, and one high-cost option). In all, insights were based on two ticket costs for 50 different events across four ticket providers giving 400 data points for the fees-to-cost comparisons.
If you’re hoping to see a concert this summer, you’ll want to consider buying your tickets on Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster is the major ticket service that charges the least amount in fees–an average of 20.69% of the ticket’s value in added fees. We all know the debacle that surrounded Swifties and Ticketmaster, but this bit of news is helpful if you’re trying to score tickets online for another concert this summer.
While StubHub is fantastic for scoring hard-to-find tickets, the convenience comes at a premium. At StubHub, you can expect an average fee markup of 27.76%. While average fees will cost just under an additional 30% of your ticket’s value, you can rest assured that you wouldn’t have found lower ones if you selected a different seat. Interestingly, the largest markup percentage found on StubHub was an NHL New Jersey Devils home game at the Prudential Center in Newark.
Vivid Seats is a game-changer when it comes to scoring seats for a sold-out show or selling your own tickets last minute, but the bad news is that they charge an average fee markup of 31.29%. So, while you might find those tickets you’ve been searching for, you’ll need to brace yourself for the total when you head for the checkout page. Vivid Seats also has fairly consistent fee markups, with most of the fees falling between 31% and 33% of your ticket’s face value.
SeatGeek, like Vivid Seats, allows you to find tickets on the secondary market. The problem? They have the highest fee markup of the four major online ticketing services in Sell Easy’s data. And it’s not just a little higher. At a fee average of 37.66%, SeatGeek fees are almost 17% higher than Ticketmaster’s! SeatGeek also had the largest spread of data in the study, with a midspread of 32.81%; that means you could luck out and pay less than an additional 25% or be faced with fees over half that of your ticket’s actual cost.
Whatever your budget, there’s no denying that extra fees can put a serious dent in your bank account. You can find all the data here, so you know what to expect next time when you check out online for your tickets.