This Friday evening, the planetary star Beyoncé will perform at the Stade de France, in front of 80,000 spectators. Among them, French people but also Americans who have traveled thousands of kilometers to find tickets at attractive prices. The idea may seem absurd, but tickets actually cost less in Europe than in the United States.
Across the Atlantic, it is the Ticketmaster sales platform that sells the tickets. Problem: There are no regulations in place and prices are adjusted based on customer demand. During singer Taylor Swift’s tour last November, you had to pay $21,500 to see her at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Faced with these exorbitant prices, 26 people filed a complaint against Ticketmaster and the US Senate questioned last January on the domination of the company in the events sector.
But, according to information from NBC News, the situation does not seem to have changed. A Beyoncé fan, Kylyn Schnelle, wanted to attend her concert in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. On Ticketmaster, the ticket was offered at 800 dollars, or 730 euros. The young woman therefore decided to compare the prices with the same concert in London, where one of her friends lives. “When I looked at the price of the ticket in London, it was 167 pounds (about 192 euros), and the flight cost about 660 dollars (about 600 euros)”, making a total of 792 euros, “the same price as the Louisville gig.
According to Jadrian Wooten, associate professor of economics at Virginia Tech, by buying their concert tickets in Europe, the American public is proving to be “very creative”. “You combine two experiences, he points out to NBC News, you live both a concert and a trip, which you might have wanted to do anyway”.
