Q4 Boost Can’t Halt
Ticket Sales Drop

Big-name tours from the likes of The Rolling Stones, Rihanna, Robbie Williams and Michael Buble have stoked a late surge in UK concert ticket sales, but not enough to prevent them from falling 10 percent from last year, according to Financial Times.

Seatwave chief exec Joe Cohen told FT that the end of the Olympics unleashed backed-up demand for live events, sparking his company’s November revenues to rise 50 percent year-on-year.

“There was a month-long period where no one bought any tickets for anything and so there was a lot of pent-up demand for people to do stuff. Being at the Olympics inspired people to go and see some live performances,” he said.

Viagogo head of marketing Ed Parkinson said big tours are causing demand to surge in the fourth quarter and into the New Year, adding, “We’ve seen a significant uptick in the number of people coming from outside the UK to UK events, such as big events at the O2, like the Rolling Stones.”

At some events, “tourist tickets” can account for nearly half of all sales via Viagogo, which operates across nearly 30 countries.

While there has been a dip in the number of concerts across the UK in recent years, major acts have proved resilient.

Chris Edmonds, managing director at Ticketmaster UK, told the FT: “Even since the recession began, we have still witnessed some record-breaking sales levels for tours for major acts like Take That, The Stone Roses and Peter Kay.