Mix Live Blog: Sticker Shock!

The 2026 Summer tour season is coming up quick, but there have already been announcements of major tour dates being canceled. High-profile artists who have either canceled dates or complete tours include Dolly Parton, Neil Young, Demi Lovato, Meghan Trainor, Post Malone, Jelly Roll, The (I thought their tour stats were bullet-proof) Rolling Stones and Pussycat Dolls.

Some artists have legit reasons for cancellations: Barry Manilow and Zayn Malik cite health reasons, while others are shrugging off touring to make more time for their families. Some of the cancellations due to health issues are clearly legit, such as Barry Manilow, but “health issues” and “need more time for my family” (You decide this after tix have gone on sale?) have long been a cover for “ticket sales suck.”

The bottom line is that concert ticket sales are in the dumpster. The post-Covid bubble has burst and inflation isn’t helping any. Consumers are more concerned with putting gas in their cars, the skyrocketing cost of groceries and paying the rent than they are spending a few hundred bucks on a concert ticket.

I took a quick look at ticket prices for shows at Northwell Health at Jones Beach in Wantagh, N.Y. Tickets for Train ranged from 70 to 90 bucks for nosebleed seats, to $275 and up for “stadium” level, to $320 and up for orchestra seats.

Prices were similar for James Taylor and His All-Star Band, and John Mellencamp—all acts that fall squarely into the category of legacy act, and not hot pop act. Two tix plus dinner and you’re looking at five to six hundred bucks.

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Meanwhile, how about Ariana Grande at Barclays Center in Brooklyn? Seventeen hundred dollars and up! These are “verified resale” tickets, which is a polite way of saying that they’re from a scalper. That’s insane. Given prices like this, it’s no wonder that ticket sales are slumping.

This is a drag for artists—no one wants to play a half-full arena—as well as for promoters who struggle with setting ticket prices against the need to recoup artist guarantees, and possibly make a profit along the way. Something’s gotta give. It doesn’t make sense for a concert promoter to continue promoting shows that don’t turn a profit. Sure, they can raise ticket prices, but then there’s that slump in ticket sales rearing its ugly head again. It’s a cold, hard fact, but some artists may need to rethink the amount of their guarantee if they wish to continue touring.

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I can’t let this blog go by without acknowledging the fact that the recording industry lost a legend when Jack Douglas passed away at the age of 80. His contributions to 1970s and ‘80s music read like a survey of the most successful pop and rock artists of the era (John Lennon, Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, Alice Cooper, et al.) and he will be sorely missed. Please read more about Jack here. 

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