The concert business continued to reach new heights in 2024, just three years after the global pandemic brought the live music industry to a standstill. Today, the top 100 global tours generate a combined $10 billion, Live Nation’s share price has hit a new record high and the number of artists generating $50 million on their tours is larger than ever. While the industry still faces challenges, the concert business once again approaches the end of the year poised for another 12 months of record growth. 

That success isn’t evenly spread out between festivals and headline concerts — the two main components of the live music business. Thanks to algorithmic and dynamic pricing, the bulk of the growth in the live space has been with headline concerts at amphitheaters, arenas and stadiums — promoters have gotten so good at predicting the price fans are willing to pay for headline concerts that they’ve been able to increase an artist’s earning power as much as 20% per show. 

Ironically, the business has struggled to find a similar formula for festivals, with ticket sales becoming increasingly difficult to predict in real time. Despite having spent tens of millions of dollars on digital infrastructure and pricing analytics, the festival business is riskier and more unpredictable today than it was a decade ago.  

The concert industry has continued to grow and flourish, despite this widening risk and reward gap for festivals, especially in 2024 when the industry has continued to hit new milestones, like Luis Miguel’s record-breaking trek, a first in Latin music, or the opening of Sphere and the nine-figure ticket sales that followed. While both make great headlines for the business, many promoters are realizing that a key goal of 2025 and beyond needs to be mitigating the financial risks plaguing the festival business while creating sustainable new platforms for artist discovery and development.