How much were concert tickets in the 80s?

Concert ticket prices by year

The typical price a fan paid, every year from 1976 to 2005. The 1980s are in green.

Decade by decade

• Late 1970s: $6 to $8. A 1976 ticket at $6.32 is about $35 today.
• 1980s: $9 to $18. Prices doubled during the decade, while prices in general rose about 50%.
• 1990s: $20 to $42. They more than doubled again, while prices in general rose about 27%.
• Early 2000s: $42 to $57.

So it isn’t just inflation. Even in today’s money, a typical 1985 ticket (about $40) cost less than half of a typical 2004 ticket (about $94).

What famous tours cost

The typical price on some well-known tours, from the same Billboard reports:

Some tours charged more than most. The Eagles’ 1994 reunion tour cost about 60% more than a typical ticket that year.

How we worked this out

Billboard printed a weekly list of concert results called Boxscore, with each show’s total ticket sales and the number of people there. We divided one by the other for 18,081 single-night shows from 1976 to 2005, and took the middle value for each year. That’s the average a fan paid, across cheap and expensive seats. It isn’t the face value of one seat.

Boxscore lists mostly arena and stadium shows big enough to report, so small clubs aren’t included. Few shows were reported from 1992 to 2001, so those years rest on 136 to 177 shows each. Today’s dollars use the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index.