American live music fans run into more trouble getting through the door than their counterparts in Britain and Australia, according to a survey of 5,107 adults across the three countries. EDM.com reports the findings, which come from the Future of Ticketing Report commissioned by the resale marketplace Tixel and carried out by Kantar, with 1,522 of the respondents in the United States. Everyone surveyed had bought, attended or tried to attend a live event in the previous twelve months.
The commissioning matters and EDM.com says so plainly: Tixel's business is verified resale with price caps, so the report is one company's reading of a market it wants reshaped in its own direction. What makes the numbers worth reading anyway is the size of the gaps between countries rather than the absolute figures.
Those gaps are wide. About 34 percent of American respondents said they had wanted or tried to attend a ticketed event in the past year and never made it, against 26 percent in Australia and 20 percent in the UK. Roughly 29 percent of Americans reported running into a fake, invalid or nonexistent ticket in that period, and 56 percent said they had at some point knowingly paid a resale price they considered significantly inflated.
Gen Z respondents came off worst of all, with 46 percent of American under-30s reporting some form of ticket fraud in the past year and 69 percent saying they had previously overpaid on resale. That is the cohort with the least money and the most exposure to the platforms where the problem lives.
Nothing in the data suggests any of this is caused by weak demand. Around 82 percent of US fans described live events as one of the best ways to bond with friends and family and 78 percent called them a form of emotional release beyond ordinary entertainment. When a ticket turned out to cost far more than expected, 67 percent said they would look for another way in rather than give up on the show.
That persistence is what exposes them. Two-thirds of American respondents had bought a resale ticket at some point, the highest share among the three markets, and 75 percent believed bots or brokers were buying up inventory to flip at a markup. Fees compound it: 28 percent of US fans said processing charges or surprise costs at checkout had talked them out of a purchase, against 20 percent in both the UK and Australia.
Trust has gone with it. Only 43 percent of Americans named ticketing or event platforms as a trusted source of information about events, which puts the companies selling the tickets level with friends and family at 42 percent. One in eight respondents said they trusted none of the sources the survey offered.
What fans say they want is not cheaper tickets but reliable ones: 78 percent of US respondents said they would pay extra for a verified or guaranteed ticket over a cheaper one with nothing behind it, and 67 percent said being able to resell a ticket made them more comfortable buying it in the first place. That second figure is the one legislators keep colliding with. Ontario has been fining marketplaces under a hard face-value cap, with StubHub penalised $20,000 this month, while a California bill to cap resale died in committee and StubHub spends heavily against the idea at the US federal level.
The facts
- Kantar surveyed 5,107 adults in the US, UK and Australia for Tixel.
- 1,522 of the respondents were American.
- About 34 percent of US respondents missed an event they tried to attend.
- That compares with 26 percent in Australia and 20 percent in the UK.
- Roughly 29 percent of Americans hit a fake or invalid ticket in the past year.
- 56 percent had knowingly paid a resale price they thought was inflated.
- 28 percent of US fans abandoned a purchase over checkout fees.
- Tixel runs a verified resale marketplace with price caps.
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