Music fans are amping up for 2025 to be the biggest year ever in stadium touring and leading the pack is Beyoncé, whose Cowboy Carter Tour has posted impressive sales after a month of ticket availability. The “Texas Hold ’Em” singer initially faced significant criticism when early presales revealed aggressive ticket prices for the now-31-date stadium tour through nine major markets — L.A., Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Houston, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Las Vegas.
Some fans criticized Bey’s high prices — tickets in her stageside Club Ho-Down section cost $1,795 a piece — but they also bought a lot of tickets. Beyoncé sold more than 1 million tickets during the fan and sponsor presales and today two-thirds of the stops on the tour — all of the dates in Houston, Atlanta, Washington D.C. and Chicago and three of her five nights in New York — are effectively sold out, with Live Nation announcing that 94% of all tickets have already been sold.
The Cowboy Carter Tour likely won’t outgross her 2023 Renaissance Tour — which ran 55 dates compared to 30 for Cowboy Carter — but she will earn far more on average than Renaissance thanks to higher ticket prices. It’s an impressive feat considering the number of A-list stadium tours competing for fan dollars this summer, including Kendrick Lamar, Post Malone, Shakira, The Weeknd and BlackPink.
The Beyoncé tour’s economic prowess is derived from its high ticket prices, priced to match what scalpers would sell the tickets for on the secondary market. Fans got their first glimpse of ticket prices on Feb. 11 for the Beyhive presale, the first of a handful of ticket presales for Beyoncé. Fans were required to register in advance for the presale and then wait to receive an email notifying them when it was their turn to try and purchase tickets for the high-demand outing.
Once the sale opened, they were given access to a wide range of tickets and prices, with nosebleeds as low as $102 while floor seats and tickets inside Beyoncé’s standing-room fan areas starting at $877 and rising to several thousand dollars per seat.
For example, tickets in the 500s section at SoFi Stadium in the upper seating area were among the least expensive for Los Angeles, priced at $166 apiece, while tickets on the floor started at $878 per ticket. The most expensive tickets at SoFi Stadium were priced at $1,422 for floor seats, while many floor tickets were priced between $1,000 to $1,200.
The range in pricing also did cause some confusion among fans, many of whom accused Ticketmaster of using surge-pricing tactics during the ticket sale process, a practice the company denies. While Ticketmaster uses data to help set prices ahead of a ticket sale, it does not adjust prices after they go on sale nor does it engage in surge pricing during periods of high demand.
While fans claimed to have seen prices change, what likely happened was that fans were comparing price points across multiple sections and seeing large variations in prices in seating sections that appeared close to one another. For example, tickets on the 100 level for Beyoncé’s June 28-29 shows in Houston saw large swings in price — the 138 section had tickets priced at $455, while just four sections over in 134, tickets were priced at $565. Closer to the stage, prices in section 102 were at $636 while tickets in section 108 were $852.
That variation in price across multiple sections confused fans who logged into the presale and had limited time to comparison shop. Adding to the confusion was that some of the least expensive tickets were first to sell during the presale, creating the perception that tickets were getting more expensive and the price was increasing, as the minutes of the presale ticked away.
Those high prices have remained strong on the secondary market, according to an analysis by Billboard. Typically, prices on the secondary market drop slightly below face value after a massive stadium onsale, but by only scheduling 30 concerts this summer, Beyoncé has created sustained demand for tickets that extended past the presale and general onsale. Tickets for her two Houston concerts, her three in Chicago concerts and two Washington, D.C. shows are effectively sold out, with only a handful of high-priced floor tickets for purchase on the primary market, while plenty of tickets are listed from secondary sellers for close to face-value prices.
Most impressive, Beyoncé has nearly sold out her first three concerts in New York (May 22, 24 & 25) and is closing in on selling out the final two concerts (May 28 & 29). Fans still hoping to score tickets will probably have the most success in Los Angeles at one her five concerts at SoFi Stadium (April 28, May 1, 4, 7 and 9).
Plenty of tickets are still available on the 500 level for as low as $105, as well as 300 level marked as VIP selling starting at $305, floor seats starting at $535 and tickets next to the stage inside the standing room only Sweet Honey and Buckin’ Honey pits.
