Although once frowned upon, buying resale tickets are now often the only way to see your favourite artists. We looked at resale prices on Viagogo to figure out if resale tickets might become the cheapest way to go to a concert and what cities you can go to to see your favourite artists at affordable prices.
Will resale tickets be the main way to see your favourite artists in the future?
The ‘dynamic pricing’ plot has been on almost every concert-goers’ lips in the past year, with concert prices exploding and the demand for tickets growing. It’s no surprise that everyone wants to go and enjoy their favourite artists after spending almost three years inside because of the pandemic.
Ticketmaster, who have dominated the ticket-selling global market for a long time, use the dynamic pricing system in the United Kingdom to sell tickets for popular artists, such as Coldplay and Harry Styles, at gigantic prices. A simple overview of how this works is the more people interested, the bigger the price!
In Harry Styles’ case, the ‘Love on Tour’ tickets were expected to cost up to £155.50 but soared to more than £360 due to dynamic pricing, according to Daily Mail. Because of the huge demand, a fourth Wembley concert was added, but the tickets sold in approximately 12 minutes, according to fans’ quotes in the same article.
Given the circumstances, resale tickets might be the best chance to go and see your favourite artists in 2023. For instance, Beyoncé just announced her Renaissance World tour. Even if the ticket prices are not available yet, we all know they will probably be extortionate considering the hype around the event! Queen Bey will perform six UK shows – one in Cardiff (May 27), Edinburgh (May 20), and Sunderland (May 23) and three in London (May 29, May 30, and June 2.) So even if the resale market pricing is soaring, you might find more affordable tickets if you’re willing to wait and do some research. We have some tips for how to do that below.
Where are the cheapest places to see your favourite artists this year?
We’ve made a list of 10 popular music artists that are touring throughout the UK this year and looked at the prices on Viagogo, a resale ticket platform. The prices of the tickets depend on the seat and how close they are to the stage, but the city and venue also play a part.
Harry Styles – Love on Tour
Harry Styles is going to perform ten times in the UK this year:
– Two nights in Coventry (22-23 May)
– Two in Edinburgh (26-27 May)
– Two in Cardiff (20-21 June)
– Four in London (13-14 June, 16-17 June)
The resale ticket prices are between £72 – £3,300, depending on the seat. The cheapest ticket (£72) is for the Cardiff concert.
Coldplay – Music of the Spheres
The rock band Coldplay will be touring throughout the UK in 2023 with six shows:
– Four in Manchester (31 May-1June, 3-4 June)
– Two in Cardiff (6-7 June)
The average resale prices are around £248 – £4,950, with the cheapest being £248 in Manchester.
The Weeknd – After Hours Til Dawn
If you plan to see The Weeknd this year, you only have four chances in the UK:
– One in Manchester (10 June)
– Three in London (7-8 July, 18 August)
You can find resale tickets between £112 and £7,439, with the most affordable one being in London.
Pink – Summer Carnival
To be a part of Pink’s Summer Carnival, you can opt for any of the seven shows she has scheduled in the UK:
– Two in Bolton (7-8 June)
– Two in Sunderland (10-11 June)
– One in Birmingham (13 June)
– Two in London (24-25 June).
The resale prices are around £140-£1,762 and the cheapest one is in Sunderland.
Chris Brown – Under the Influence
There are eight opportunities to catch Chris Brown’s first solo tour in the UK in 12 years:
– Four in London (14-17 February)
– One in Birmingham (19 February)
– One in Glasgow (20 February)
– Two in Manchester (21 February, 9 March).
The resale prices for his concerts are between £136 and £10,606, with the cheapest option in Glasgow.
Elton John – Farewell Yellow Brick Road
Elton John fans will be thrilled to find out that there are 25 concert dates in the UK this year. He will perform:
– Twice in Liverpool (23-24 March)
– Twice in Aberdeen (13 June, 15 June)
– Twice in Glasgow (17-18 June)
– Twice in Belfast (31 March)
– Twice in Leeds (6 June)
– Three times in Manchester (31 May, 2-3 June)
– Four times in Birmingham (26 March, 8 June, 10-11 June)
– Ten times in London (2 April, 4-5 April, 8-9 April, 12-13 April, 16-17 April, 30 May)
The resale ticket prices are between £150 and £2,946, with the most affordable in Birmingham.
Snoop Dogg – I Wanna Thank Me
To see Snoop Dogg perform and thank himself, fans can go and see him in March at one of his six UK concerts:
– Belfast (14 March)
– Manchester (15 March)
– Glasgow (16 March)
– London (21 March)
– Leeds (27 March)
– Birmingham (28 March).
There are still tickets on resale from £94 to £883, with the cheapest one in London.
Ozzy Osbourne – No More Tours 2
Ozzy Osbourne fans can go and see him playing in six British locations. He will be touring:
– Nottingham (31 May)
– Newcastle upon Tyne (2 June)
– Glasgow (4 June)
– Manchester (7 June)
– London (12 June)
– Birmingham (14 June).
The prices are around £98 – £491, with the cheapest seat in Manchester.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The acclaimed rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers will continue touring the world in 2023 with two stops in the UK:
– London (21 July)
– Glasgow (23 July).
The prices on resale are around £173 – £831, with the cheapest one in London.
Guns N’ Roses
The classic American rock band Guns N’ Roses can also be seen in the UK in:
– London (30 June).
Tickets are resold with prices between £147 – £1,170, depending on the seating.
The resale pricing data has underlined some interesting trends that we can take into account when searching for cheap resale tickets:
- There is no particular UK city where you can find cheaper resale tickets, the cheapest city is different for every artist. However, for some artists, such as Harry Styles, Coldplay, The Weeknd and Pink, the cheapest city is the one where they have more than one show scheduled. So it might be worth checking the resale prices for locations that will host more than one show of your artist.
- Ticket prices seem to be cheaper for concerts outside England (Wales and Scotland).
- There is no surprise that London is one of the most expensive locations for resale tickets, but as you can see above, some concerts have affordable resale tickets for London as well, so you don’t have to travel too far out for a reasonably priced concert.
For those that love going to concerts and don’t want to give up on enjoying live performances by their favourite artists, there is some hope left with resale and it might actually be the more affordable option for in-demand artists when compared to dynamic pricing costs.
