Eras Tour
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Taylor Swift is returning to the road to complete the final leg of her Eras Tour for fans eager to hear the singer-songwriter perform new tracks like “Fortnight,” “Down Bad” and “Florida!!!” from her new album, The Tortured Poets Department.
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But those fans may be in for some sticker shock. Prices to see Swift at one of her final nine shows in the United States have increased following the release of the album April 19, with the average get-in-the-door price — the lowest price available — hovering around $2,600 per ticket, according to data from TicketIQ. That means it would cost a couple more than $5,000 just to be in the same building as Swift in Miami (Oct 18-20), New Orleans (Oct 25-27) and Indianapolis (Nov. 1-3) this fall.
In Europe, however — where Swift starts a 51-show run on May 9 with a kickoff date at Paris’ La Defense Arena — tickets cost only a fraction of that. Right now, the get-in-the door price to see the opening of the European leg of the Eras Tour is $340 a ticket — 87% cheaper than the average price in the United States.
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That means a fan in Miami could fly to Paris for about $900 a person (according to prices generated on kayak.com), spend two nights at a four-star hotel at $250 a night and purchase a $340 concert ticket for a grand total of $1,740 — which is still $760 less than the cheapest tickets currently available for her Miami shows.
Tickets to see Swift in Stockholm (May 17-19) are even cheaper, at $312 for the cheapest tickets, while tickets for her show in Portugal (May 24-25) start at $336 and in Spain (May 29-30) start at $324. Prices do start to climb in the United Kingdom, with the get-in-the-door price hovering around £540 (about $674 USD) for Swift’s Liverpool shows (June 13-15). Prices to see Swift at Wembley Stadium (June 21-23) hover around £720 ($900).
The reason for the huge difference in price, experts say, is due in part to longstanding consumer skepticism about resale tickets in most of Europe. That’s coupled with a much more aggressive regulatory environment where artists and consumers are empowered to report and remove illegal ticket listings, and where prices are kept low thanks to laws limiting how high tickets can be marked up over face value.
The European approach is significantly different from that of the United States, where ticket resale is not regulated and deceptive marketing practices, including the use of deceptive websites and speculative ticket listings, continue unabated despite widespread outcry from consumers. And federal officials don’t regularly enforce the few ticketing laws that do exist. It took five years after the BOTS Act — banning automated programs that jump the queue and buy up tickets — was passed for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to bring a case against brokers for violating the bill.
Sam Shemtob, managing director for ticket resale advocacy group Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing (FEAT), points to Europe as a model for how governments can be more vigilant about regulating resale markets. In countries like France, Germany and the Netherlands, ticket resellers face limits on how much tickets can be marked up on secondary sites — typically 20% over face value. Other countries like the United Kingdom allow resale but restrict who is allowed to post tickets for resale and give artists and event promoters the right to take some resale ticket listings down.
Adopting European-style regulations in the United States by restricting ticket markups to 20% above face value would transform the concert business overnight and likely drive prices down dramatically on the secondary market. Markup caps would also likely make programs like Ticketmaster’s platinum ticket pricing (which charges high markups for a small percentage of tickets to offset the resale market) obsolete and significantly reduce the number of ticket brokers and bad actors using bots to disrupt ticket sales and illegally buy up tickets.
A federal cap on ticket markups would also significantly disrupt the secondary ticketing market and push many brokers out of business, which might create unintended consequences for sports teams that are much more willing to sell season tickets to brokers and depend on resellers for distribution. It’s also unclear if Americans would even accept a regulatory framework capping how much tickets could be marked up. Lawmakers in New York, Utah, Colorado, Connecticut and Virginia have all passed laws in the last decade making it illegal to restrict how and where ticket brokers resell tickets. While U.S. consumers often complain about the excesses of ticket resale and like the idea of using technology to keep tickets out of the hands of scalpers, they also dislike the restrictions that come with non-transferable tickets and tend to loudly oppose policies that create inconveniences.
Shemtob notes that Europe’s ticketing rules aren’t just about protecting price, but are also designed to empower citizens to take action.
On Jan. 1, 2025, Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) will go into effect, creating a uniform set of guidelines for online ticket resale requiring resellers to disclose their names and contact details to potential ticket buyers. The DSA also mandates that resale platforms track takedowns of public ticket listings (to help provide a record of the deceptive activity taking place) and ban deceptive marketing practices.
While many of the DSA’s reforms mirror U.S. efforts to clean up ticketing, Shemtob says a provision in the DSA bill that makes it simple to flag, report and take down ticket listings that violate the rules is a game-changer for consumer advocates. The law creates “a clear process for removing illegal ticket listings as and when they appear,” he said in a statement provided to Billboard, putting in place “the groundwork for a fairer, more transparent ticket-buying experience for consumers.”
Besides keeping prices in Europe low, the legislation has also led to a surprising boom in tourism from U.S. fans traveling to the continent to pursue cheaper Eras Tour tickets: A spokesperson for StubHub told Billboard that 68% of ticket purchases for Swift’s 51-show run in Europe have come from U.S. buyers.
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AMC Theatres beat Wall Street expectations, reporting fourth-quarter revenue of $1.10 billion, up from $990.9 million in 2022 and a net loss of $182 million, compared to a net loss of $287.7 million in 2022.
For the full year, the theater chain reported total revenue of $4.8 billion, up from $3.9 billion in 2022. Net loss improved to $396.6 million, up $577 million from a year earlier.
AMC Theater CEO Adam Aron said that “literally all” of the increase in revenue in the fourth quarter was driven by Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. Total attendance in the fourth-quarter grew to 51.9 million, up 4.7% from a year ago.
“What is particularly noteworthy is how much AMC benefited from our trailblazing industry leading efforts with our highly successful distribution of two concert movies Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour and Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé,” Aron wrote in the press release. “Despite a diminished box office overall, in the fourth quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago, AMC’s revenue grew by 11.5 percent and AMC’s adjusted EBITDA almost tripled. Literally, all of that increase in AMC’s Revenue and EBITDA is attributable to our having shown these two movies in our theatres in the U.S. and internationally.”
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On the earnings call, AMC Theatres management said it is introducing a new version of its Nicole Kidman commercial.”
“Before every movie starts, and starting March 1, we’re going to show three different, 30-second Nicole Kidman commercials before the movie starts on a rotating basis,” Aron said.
A spokesperson later clarified that the spots are not “new ads or sequels” but “never-before-seen-in-theatres versions of the original, iconic ad.”
Aron said the company’s “phones have been ringing off the hook” with requests from musical artists and that the theater chain will have more concert movies “later in 2024 and/or 2025.”
Aside from these two films, fourth-quarter domestic industry-wide box office was down 35% versus 2019, as the industry continues to deal with lingering impact from the dual strikes. Still, Aaron said he believes the strike impacts will starts to ease up this spring.
“AMC believes that the box office will start to strengthen again as soon as this coming month of March, in some of the summer months and especially in the latter third of this year. And over the medium term, we are both bullish and optimistic. With all the caveats that no one’s crystal ball is perfect, we currently expect that the industry box office in 2025 will grow by $1 to $2 billion, or more, in size over 2024,” he said.
Due to the impact from the strikes, which Aron reiterated he believes is “temporary,” AMC has “tightened” its operating hours, cut costs, “right-sized” its theater portfolio, as in adding two new high performing theaters and closing nine underperforming locations, and “pushed the innovation envelope in merchandise and food & beverage sales,” Aaron wrote. Part of off-setting the strike impact was also establishing a new revenue stream through the distribution of concert movies.
The company also conducted several stock exchange agreements at the end of 2023 to pay down some of its debt. In the full year 2023, AMC reduced the principal balance of its debt by $448.1 million.
“Given AMC’s proven ability to thread the needle in coping with one Herculean challenge after another, we are confident in our company’s future,” Aron said.
Still, during the call, Aron addressed the pain he believes is felt by his retail shareholders noting that “it was not a good year” for them. He added that he is a shareholder in the company too and has also felt their pain, but will now be taking an added step.
Last week, Aron said he recommended to the AMC Board of Directors that for 12 months, starting now, his target compensation be reduced by 25% versus the previous year’s target.
“I am a shareholder. I am holding. I’m not selling. I ride with you,” Aron said. “So when you do well financially with AMC, I will too. But if you’re hurting from that investment, I believe that I too, should be hurting with you as well.”
At the end of the call, Aron addressed the retail investors who have helped prop up the stock, noting that “it was not a good year,” for them, and to whom he said he had promised “straight talk” on what’s happening at AMC.
He said he also wanted to address the “garbage information floating around Twitter, YouTube and other corners of the internet about AMC,” including the “hubbub and litigation” that surrounded AMC and the Delaware Courts in 2023 and further dilution of their shares by selling preferred equity units in Aug 2022 or APES. The cash from these sales was necessary to keep the cash afloat, he argued.
“We did, in dilution, what was absolutely vital for your company to do to get through the many challenges that were thrown our way,” he said.
He also addressed a conspiracy theory about the management team at AMC.
“It’s disappointing how many people out there typing into their Twitter feeds that the management team at AMC is somehow actively working against the interests of our real retail shareholders, and standing nefariously on the side of evil,” Aron said, pointing to this quarter’s results.
“One doesn’t launch popcorn to the home, or blaze new trails with innovative concept movies that have been incredibly profitable and reputationally enhancing for AMC, if one is trying to undermine our company’s success,” he added.
Still, even after that outreach, the stock continued falling 9 percent after the call Wednesday.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.