The US Live Event Ticket Price Index
What does it actually cost to walk into a live event in America? We analysed 161,344 priced event listings across 203,471 upcoming US events. Free to cite and reuse.
$91
National median entry price — the typical cheapest seat at a US live event.
2.3×
Price gap between the priciest and cheapest major markets — New York ($145) vs New Orleans ($63).
9%
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 2.3× more than the same tier of ticket in New Orleans. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| New Orleans | $63 | 483 |
| Dallas | $67 | 1,221 |
| Atlanta | $72 | 1,793 |
| Detroit | $75 | 1,029 |
| Philadelphia | $76 | 1,799 |
| San Diego | $76 | 910 |
| Charlotte | $76 | 751 |
| Portland | $77 | 1,401 |
| Denver | $81 | 1,473 |
| Austin | $82 | 919 |
| Miami | $82 | 598 |
| Cleveland | $82 | 977 |
| Houston | $85 | 1,545 |
| Baltimore | $85 | 516 |
| San Antonio | $86 | 644 |
| Boston | $87 | 1,572 |
| Pittsburgh | $89 | 674 |
| Minneapolis | $91 | 1,067 |
| Seattle | $92 | 1,668 |
| St. Louis | $92 | 935 |
| San Francisco | $94 | 1,710 |
| Nashville | $95 | 1,319 |
| Chicago | $98 | 2,846 |
| Los Angeles | $102 | 2,639 |
| Phoenix | $105 | 1,324 |
| Tampa | $106 | 654 |
| Las Vegas | $114 | 19,268 |
| Orlando | $115 | 1,237 |
| Washington | $115 | 1,922 |
| New York | $145 | 13,238 |
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, $87) and the priciest (Sunday, $94) is just 9% — 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 | $87 | 31,564 |
| Friday | $89 | 44,702 |
| Wednesday | $92 | 20,548 |
| Saturday | $92 | 24,932 |
| Monday | $93 | 13,687 |
| Tuesday | $93 | 18,060 |
| Sunday | $94 | 7,851 |
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 | $49 | 24,095 |
| Concerts | $85 | 61,441 |
| Other | $93 | 10,412 |
| Theatre | $107 | 65,396 |
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 | $67 | 571 |
| Dallas | $68 | 747 |
| Baltimore | $68 | 228 |
| Atlanta | $70 | 814 |
| San Francisco | $71 | 955 |
| San Diego | $72 | 577 |
| Denver | $72 | 823 |
| New Orleans | $72 | 232 |
| Houston | $74 | 717 |
| Philadelphia | $74 | 905 |
Methodology
Figures are drawn from TicketNetwork's live resale inventory as surfaced through our affiliate catalogue on 2026-10-18, covering 203,471 upcoming US events, of which 161,344 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 2026-10-18. https://tickets4pets.org/research/ticket-price-index/