For Wu-Tang Clan superfans with money to burn, snagging a premium ticket for their upcoming tour won’t just buy killer seats, but gain them entry to an exclusive pre-party offering an immersive look at the kung-fu and iconography of the famed Staten Island hip-hop collective.
“We’re really being thoughtful from a pricing perspective,” Ben Duvdevani, co-founder of One More Time VIP, says of the Shaolin Temple Preshow Party ticket package, which offers entry to a time capsule-style exhibit showcasing rare Wu-Tang fan memorabilia and 3D video projections of classic films like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Five Deadly Venoms that inspired albums like Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and Wu-Tang Forever.
“Packaging premium seats with these programs is enticing for the fan and helps push inventory. It helps push the bots out of purchasing premium inventory” and, he adds, “helps conversion for VIP.”
The Shaolin Temple package is just one example of the lucrative VIP concert business in 2025, which is poised for a comeback thanks to a new generation of fans looking to invest in artist-centric experiences.
“There’s a ton of business out there because there are so many artists on the road right now, and so many artists at all levels trying to create something memorable for their fans,” adds Duvdevani, whose company is handing VIP packages for about 300 tours this year including Shaboozey, Sabrina Carpenter, Teddy Swims and HAIM.
It’s an impressive feat for an industry hit hard by COVID-19. The VIP business was born in the 1990s thanks in part to the work of New Yorker Shelley Lazar — the beloved “Ticketing Queen” who convinced iconic artists like the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and The Who to let her build out premium offerings for diehard fans she came to know on a first name basis — and it continued to grow in the new millennium as touring exploded. By the early 2000s, most artists were offering fans some type of VIP product, from meet and greets to destination concerts, facilitated and produced by a new generation of VIP companies with names like Fresh Beats and CID.
Beginning in 2017, many of the VIP companies started to consolidate. Several of them came under the NFL-backed firm OnLocation, which was purchased in March 2020 by Endeavor — just weeks before the concert business shut down for more than a year during COVID-19. During the pandemic, one popular U.K. VIP and hospitality company, Pollen, was forced to file for bankruptcy and later dismissed most of their staff.
Many VIP executives used the pandemic period to leave Endeavor and begin serving out their non-competes. By 2022, a new crop of companies founded by these execs started popping up, including One More Time, which won the contract to build the Shaolin Temple Preshow Party for Wu-Tang Clan’s upcoming Final Chapter North American arena tour. “It’s a bespoke preshow activation, where there’s going to be some surprises and a really special experience for fans,” Duvdevani tells Billboard of the exhibit that was created for the group’s 27-city tour. The Shaolin Temple pre-party is being packaged with front section floor tickets and priced at $740 a piece all-in.
VIP conversion has become increasingly common as more artists embrace platinum ticket pricing and higher prices for front row seating inventory as a response to secondary ticketing prices. Coupling these high-end tickets with VIP add-ons has become an important way to move aggressively priced inventory.
That need has led to one major change in how VIP packages and fan clubs are operated. Prior to the pandemic, many VIP companies operated ticketing systems that pulled tickets off the Ticketmaster or AXS platform, a practice that has largely ended.
“We want to put our best foot forward to make sure everyone’s winning, so we’re not taking anything off platform,” Duvdevani says. “Promoters are still getting the sale, and we’re also being mindful of that inventory. We don’t want to hold up a sell-out.”
Eddie Meehan got his start running VIP access company A Wonderful Union in the early 2000s before eventually selling to OnLocation and subsequently launching Please & Thank You. Meehan said his new company’s clients include Backstreet Boys, Alice Cooper, Melissa Etheridge and Peso Pluma.
“You have to be creative because many artists simply aren’t interested in doing meet and greets, it’s very taxing,” says Meehan, noting that he’s found success creating activations for artists like Aimee Mann, who offered VIP package holders a preshow soundcheck performance with songs not performed during the concert. Fans of another Please & Thank You client, *NSYNC, were invited to a restaurant for a private dumpling making party.
“We’ve had a lot of success bringing in brands to underwrite some of these events, which means more money in the pocket of the artist,” says Meehan, who has struck deals with Amazon Music and eBay Motors. “I tell brands they won’t get the same exposure to 600,000 fans they would get on a tour, but they do get access to 3,000 diehard, loyal fans who will evangelize your brand.”
Duvdevani added that VIP offerings shouldn’t be limited to established artists, pointing to newcomer Jessica Baio, a 23-year-old singer-songwriter who hired One More Time to run a VIP meet and greet program for her first headliner club tour.
“I feel like such an important part of going and performing live is also getting to meet people face to face,” Baio tells Billboard. “It’s something I wanted to offer to people and it’s just one of my favorite parts of the night, getting to physically hug people and meet them in person and allow them to share why my songs have touched them.”
While young artists like Baio have found success with a meet and greet program scaled to fit their tours, VIP industry luminary Dan Berkowitz, who is widely recognized with having helped create the VIP business through his firm CID, which he sold in 2016, says artists should only offer VIP experiences to fans if those experiences promote an “authentic connection.”
If the artist is committed to making the experience work, says Berkowitz, who launched his new company, 100x Hospitality, in 2022, there’s always potential for success.
“There is always going to be a strong demand for compelling experiences and people are always going to want to feel connected to the music that they love and to each other,” he says.
