The US Live Event Ticket Price Index
What does it actually cost to walk into a live event in America? We analysed 163,496 priced event listings across 209,018 upcoming US events. Free to cite and reuse.
$87
National median entry price — the typical cheapest seat at a US live event.
2.0×
Price gap between the priciest and cheapest major markets — New York ($143) vs Dallas ($70).
10%
The entire weekday-to-weekend spread. The "always buy midweek" rule is worth far less than people assume.
Finding 1: where you live matters more than when you buy
The single biggest driver of entry price is geography. A ticket in New York costs 2.0× more than the same tier of ticket in Dallas. Across all US cities in our sample the spread is wider still. If you are willing to travel to a secondary market — or you already live in one — you are buying live entertainment at a structural discount.
Median entry price by major market
| Market | Median entry price | Events priced |
|---|---|---|
| Dallas | $70 | 1,416 |
| New Orleans | $71 | 532 |
| Portland | $72 | 1,924 |
| Philadelphia | $74 | 2,057 |
| Detroit | $74 | 1,159 |
| Charlotte | $76 | 908 |
| Baltimore | $76 | 594 |
| Austin | $79 | 1,155 |
| Houston | $81 | 1,656 |
| San Antonio | $81 | 678 |
| San Diego | $81 | 1,253 |
| Cleveland | $81 | 1,187 |
| Denver | $83 | 1,770 |
| Atlanta | $83 | 1,935 |
| San Francisco | $83 | 1,739 |
| Seattle | $85 | 1,747 |
| Nashville | $87 | 1,427 |
| Miami | $87 | 634 |
| Boston | $89 | 1,667 |
| Minneapolis | $93 | 1,107 |
| St. Louis | $93 | 1,149 |
| Los Angeles | $95 | 2,760 |
| Chicago | $96 | 3,367 |
| Tampa | $98 | 732 |
| Pittsburgh | $99 | 774 |
| Washington | $104 | 2,132 |
| Orlando | $105 | 1,223 |
| Las Vegas | $108 | 14,890 |
| Phoenix | $113 | 1,318 |
| New York | $143 | 12,273 |
Finding 2: the midweek discount is mostly a myth
Conventional advice says buy tickets for a weekday show to save money. In our sample the difference between the cheapest day (Thursday, $83) and the priciest (Tuesday, $91) is just 10% — real, but far smaller than the 2×+ swings you get from choosing a different city, category, or seating tier.
| Day of week | Median entry price | Events priced |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday | $83 | 33,451 |
| Friday | $86 | 46,574 |
| Wednesday | $87 | 20,396 |
| Monday | $90 | 13,425 |
| Saturday | $91 | 25,281 |
| Sunday | $91 | 7,339 |
| Tuesday | $91 | 17,030 |
Finding 3: sport is the cheapest night out, theatre the priciest
Category separates sharply. Live sport has the lowest barrier to entry in America, while theatre carries the highest — driven by smaller houses and longer runs.
| Category | Median entry price | Events priced |
|---|---|---|
| Sports | $56 | 20,640 |
| Concerts | $81 | 75,476 |
| Other | $95 | 10,430 |
| Theatre | $106 | 56,950 |
Finding 4: the cheapest cities for live music
Narrowing to concerts only, these markets offer the lowest entry prices in the country.
| Market | Median concert entry price | Concerts priced |
|---|---|---|
| Detroit | $63 | 683 |
| Philadelphia | $69 | 1,179 |
| Atlanta | $69 | 969 |
| Cleveland | $69 | 648 |
| Dallas | $70 | 936 |
| Baltimore | $70 | 324 |
| San Francisco | $71 | 1,247 |
| Houston | $72 | 897 |
| Denver | $72 | 1,132 |
| Austin | $75 | 850 |
Methodology
Figures are drawn from TicketNetwork's live resale inventory as surfaced through our affiliate catalogue on 2026-09-03, covering 209,018 upcoming US events, of which 163,496 carried a usable price range.
- "Price" means the lowest listed price for an event — the entry point, not the average price paid or the face value. Actual paid prices are higher.
- We report medians, not means, so a handful of premium listings can't skew a market.
- Markets need ≥40 priced events to appear; concert-only figures need ≥30.
- This is resale-market data. Prices may sit above or below face value.
- The index recalculates every day as inventory changes — figures on this page are current, not a frozen snapshot.
Citation & reuse
This data is free to use with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Please credit Tickets 4 Pets US Live Event Ticket Price Index and link to this page. Journalists and researchers: we're happy to run custom cuts of the data — get in touch.
Suggested citation: Tickets 4 Pets. "US Live Event Ticket Price Index." Accessed 2026-09-03. https://tickets4pets.org/research/ticket-price-index/