🏟️ IRL boom amid AI gloom

💸 Pricey, still packed

🍿Perks pile up

💰Screens surpass seats

🏡 Brands chase fans outside

⭐️ Stars sell

👀 Everyone is watching

1 fun thing: 🐣 Toddler techno

Data: Financial Modeling Prep; Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals

Live entertainment is booming and one of media's biggest growth bets.

The big picture: A scarcity of events offers companies more leverage to upsell fans and Wall Street has taken note.

Live is also more resilient to some of the AI-driven disruptions to digital media business models.

By the numbers: Global revenue across cinema, live music, out-of-home advertising and trade shows has nearly doubled since 2021 to roughly $149 billion in 2025, per PwC.

The growth is now stabilizing. But PwC forecasts revenue will keep climbing to about $174 billion by 2030.

Data: PwC Global Entertainment, Media & Telecoms Outlook, 2021-2030; Note: Cinema revenue includes box office and in-cinema advertising; Chart: Sara Wise/Axios

Zoom out: Those numbers have Wall Street rewarding live event companies, although not evenly.

Publicly traded companies focused on scarce events, such as sports, premium movies and live performances, have generally outpaced the S&P 500 over the past five years, according to an Axios analysis.

PwC partner Bart Spiegel says attending live events has become a form of "social currency" for younger consumers especially.

Meanwhile, publicly traded firms that support evergreen activities, such as theme parks and social entertainment (i.e. bowling and arcades), have lagged the S&P 500 in the past five years.

Macroeconomic factors are likely to blame, with companies like Dave & Buster's and Comcast/NBCUniversal citing higher fuel prices and airfare among factors impacting their most recent quarterly earnings.

Yes, but: The boom has limits, especially in an inflationary environment. 

Pricing power ultimately depends on value, PwC principal CJ Bangah tells Axios. Companies get into trouble when they keep raising prices while consumers feel the experience isn't improving or even getting worse.

An example of this occurred in 2022, when Six Flags raised ticket prices and cut discounts to attract higher-spending visitors. Attendance, and subsequently earnings, sank. 

Another risk is saturation, as was the case for immersive Van Gogh art exhibits.

What to watch: Analysts expect the live experiences boom to continue driving deals. 

IMAX has engaged in sale talks. SeatGeek filed confidentially for an IPO. National CineMedia on Thursday said it's acquiring out-of-home ad company Captivate.

The bottom line: "We're way past the post-pandemic rebound at this point," SeatGeek CEO Jack Groetzinger says. 

"It's more just the new normal. If anything, AI fuels all of that because people value what is real versus synthetic. People want real experiences to balance themselves out."

1 big thing: 🏟️ IRL boom amid AI gloom

Data: BLS; Note: No data in October 2025 due to lapse in appropriations; Chart: Sara Wise/Axios

Admission prices for movies, theaters and concerts in the U.S. have jumped more than 41% since January 2016, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Why it matters: That's just the ticket. Fans may complain about higher costs, but they're still showing up and spending for travel, food and other expenses.

By the numbers: The U.S. Open's signature Honey Deuce cocktail cost $23 last year, up from $15 in 2015. Yet fans bought a record 738,459 of them, up 32% from 2025.

The average ticket price for Billboard's top 100 global tours rose from $84.15 in 2015 to $127.17 last year, per Luminate, while attendance across those tours roughly doubled over the same period.

Ticket cost remains the biggest barrier to attending live music. But Luminate said the share of Americans citing it as a deterrent fell from 59% in Q1 2024 to 53% in Q1 2026. Among Gen Z, it dropped from 75% to 57%.

Between the lines: The product itself is getting bigger.

"What it means to go to a concert now versus 10 years ago is so different. It's more of a production," SeatGeek's Groetzinger says, noting Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour" was a spectacle closer to a Broadway show.

Reality check: Despite the broader rise in admission costs, SeatGeek's resale data doesn't show concert ticket prices steadily climbing in recent years even as more tickets are sold.

SeatGeek's concert ticket volume jumped 43% from 2022 to 2024 and is pacing higher again this year, while average resale prices have bounced between $195 and $231 since 2022.

Groetzinger says prices are more closely tied to which artists are touring than to a consistent upward trend.

The intrigue: Artists and leagues are experimenting with ways to keep at least some tickets affordable.

Coldplay and Olivia Rodrigo have offered tickets for under $30 through Live Nation.

Spotify launched Reserved, which gives eligible fans access to face-value tickets for some high-demand shows.

Banana Ball created its own "verified market" for face-value reselling to try to eliminate scammers, CEO Jesse Cole said. 

Regulators are putting pressure on the ticketing business over how prices are displayed and how much competition exists.

The FTC's junk-fee rule requires ticket sellers to display the total price, including mandatory fees, upfront.

StubHub agreed in April to refund $10 million to consumers to settle FTC allegations that it deceptively advertised prices without mandatory fees. 

Live Nation settled with the Justice Department in March, but some states kept litigating. In April, a New York jury found the company liable for violating U.S. and state antitrust laws.

What to watch: Live Nation's settlement could make it easier for venues to work with alternate ticketing providers.

2. 💸 Pricey, still packed

Data: Company filings; Chart: Sara Wise/Axios

As people spend more time and money on live entertainment, companies are giving them more ways to pay up for a better experience.

Why it matters: Premium experiences can not only increase what each attendee spends but also attract more customers overall.

Zoom in: IMAX captured a record 3.8% of the global box office last year, up from 2.6% in 2019. Dolby Cinema also secured record 2025 revenue and is pacing for another milestone, following the success of "Spider-Man: Brand New Day."

"If they're going to leave their homes, they want something compelling to leave the home for," IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond says.

People are willing to "drive further, pay more" for the premium experience, says Jed Harmsen, vice president and general manager of cinema and group entertainment at Dolby Laboratories.

Zoom out: Premium experiences can lift the broader business.

Dolby says locations with its format delivered a 24% year-over-year box office lift for the complex from 2022 to 2024, compared to an 8% baseline.

Luxury can fuel FOMO, serving as a form of marketing. On Location president Paul Caine says his premium experiential hospitality business thinks about what guests could post that makes the moment feel different from watching on TV.

State of play: Companies are building tiers around the same event, offering dedicated entrances, premium food and exclusive access.

On Location offered seven tiers for the World Cup, selling 642,560 packages to guests from 154 countries. At the high end, 329 guests paid for the on-pitch experience.

A package for the final included front-row seats and field access for the trophy ceremony, reportedly priced at $1 million.

At Disney World, private VIP tours cost $450 to $950 per hour with a seven-hour minimum on top of park admission. Universal Orlando offers a similar experience.

More music festivalgoers are paying up. VIP and premium purchases on StubHub are up roughly 17% year over year, while festivals see about 7x the share of premium purchases as concerts.

Between the lines: Premium isn't synonymous with ultra-rich.

On Location's customers span corporate buyers, high-net-worth consumers and "bucket list" fans who may save for years for a once-in-a-lifetime event, Caine says.

What to watch: Companies are testing how many parts of an experience consumers will pay to upgrade.

3. 🍿Perks pile up

Sports have become one of the most lucrative forms of live entertainment in the country, thanks to the extraordinary media rights fees they command over other categories.

Why it matters: Even as game attendance continues to climb, media rights now account for far more sports revenue than tickets.

Zoom in: That transition, which happened shortly before the pandemic, has redefined what success means for leagues, teams and operators.

Besides driving value for attendees, in-game experiences also create engaging TV programming and social media content that attracts even more brand spend.

Between the lines: While the live nature of sports makes their rights tougher to monetize over staggered release windows, like movies, it does allow them to upsell networks significantly in real time.

As a result, live sports TV advertising is has become one of the most lucrative categories for media networks, especially as they shift to streaming. 

Disney announced last week it sold out its 2027 Super Bowl ad inventory, coming at a record pace.

Zoom out: The maturity of men's sports has made the growth across women's sports an increasingly efficient bet for advertisers and investors.

The WNBA quadrupled its media rights values in 2024 amid record viewership. That same year, viewership for the NCAA women's basketball championship outdrew the men's championship for the first time ever.

Other sports, such as women's professional soccer and college softball, have also seen viewership and attendance records. 

Data: SeatGeek; Note: Professional Women's Hockey League began in 2023 therefore change can't be listed; Chart: Sara Wise/Axios

What to watch: The popularity of women's sports has put pressure on the resale ticket market, with women's basketball driving the largest growth in resale ticket value across all sports between 2022 and 2025, per SeatGeek. 

The WNBA in particular has posted record attendance and viewership, with its 2026 All-Star Game drawing a bigger crowd than the NBA's.

4. 💰Screens surpass seats

Illustration of various sports equipment and a fan holding a foam finger 

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

As online attention gets harder to capture, brands are investing more of their ad budgets against in-person events and experiences.

Why it matters: Out-of-home advertising can't be blocked, turned off, skipped or swiped past. In fact, people will actively share it online.

The big picture: OOH advertising is becoming a bigger part of media budgets, in part as more placements become digital and automated, says Lucy Markowitz, SVP at Vistar Media, a leader in programmatic OOH.

Brands can now tailor out-of-home ads around what's happening in a particular city, allowing them to tap into the fandom surrounding a concert, game or other cultural moment, Markowitz says.

During the World Cup, DoorDash turned digital billboards across U.S. cities into live scoreboards, updating the creative with the latest match results.

Digital OOH ads are expected to surpass physical OOH by 2029, per PwC.

Between the lines: OOH ads are becoming experiential.

Netflix put a person inside a billboard for "The Last House." Goodwipes created a scented billboard. Innovative Partnerships Group helped create newly relaunched venue The Square in New York, combining digital signs with live performances.

Brands are also building physical spaces of their own. Goodwipes began experimenting with experiential marketing by bringing "Porta Palace," a luxury portable bathroom, to music and fitness festivals.

After seeing more online engagement in markets where it activated, Goodwipes created a dedicated experiential budget this year worth roughly 10% to 15% of its overall marketing spend, SVP of marketing Meredith Diehn says.

Yes, but: Experiential can get expensive.

Diehn says Goodwipes prioritizes "quality over quantity," favoring smaller activations where consumers actually engage with the brand over experiences designed simply to rack up impressions.

Scarcity matters, too. The Square will be a 365-day-a-year entertainment venue, but large-scale events are limited to approximately six to eight per year so they remain "very special," IPG CEO Jeff Marks says.

What to watch: Brands are looking for ways to extend a live moment to multiple places — and not just through TV or TikTok Live.

Marks calls the concept a "physical twin."

5. 🏡 Brands chase fans outside

Star power is taking on new value as fans pay to turn parasocial relationships into real-life experiences.

Why it matters: Familiar faces can still be one of the strongest draws for getting people out of the house.

Hollywood relies on stars like Matt Damon, Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet to make audiences even more compelled to see films in theaters. Their press tours, premiere looks and social followings can generate weeks of attention.

Broadway regularly turns to recognizable names. "Chicago," "Moulin Rouge" and "Oh, Mary!" are among the shows using high-profile replacements to keep extending interest.

Yes, but: Stars aren't a prerequisite for a hit.

"Obsession," made for less than $1 million and without A-list leads, was one of the year's biggest breakout films and in the process turned actors Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette and director Curry Barker into much bigger names.

Zoom in: Fans of YouTubers and podcasters spend hours watching or listening to the same hosts every week and are choosing to see them in person.

Dude Perfect, a sports and comedy show that started on YouTube in 2009, just wrapped its sixth year of live touring, drawing more than 180,000 fans across 22 arenas for its Squad Games Tour. 

Live podcast ticket sales are up 1,442% from 2019, even as the number of live podcast events on its marketplace has grown just 35%. The number of distinct podcast properties selling tickets is up 59%, per StubHub.

Follow the money: Fans are shelling out to attend. Average resale prices on SeatGeek range from $211 for "SmartLess" and $191 for "New Heights" to around $100 for "Crime Junkie" and "Small Town Murder."

"Call Her Daddy" host Alex Cooper held a weekend-long event in October in Las Vegas that included live shows, with tickets costing $300. Though other Unwell events, like a party in New York this past week, are free.

For talent, live can be highly lucrative. Kara Swisher said at On Air Fest in February that she generated roughly $2.5 million from a week of live shows, which she described as relatively inexpensive to produce.

What's next: "We're moving from an era of watching to a new era of participation," Jubilee Media CEO Jason Y. Lee says.

The digital media company tested that thesis with a live dating show at UCLA for its brand Nectar. About 1,000 students showed up to both watch and participate.

That participatory element is already showing up more at concerts with Sabrina Carpenter, Role Model, Hilary Duff and Usher.

6. ⭐️ Stars sell

Photo illustration of Matt Damon, Zendaya, and Timothée Chalamet

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: VCG/VCG, Todd Owyoung/NBC, and Pierre Suu/WireImage via Getty Images

As venues adopt new security technology and fans wear cameras, attending a live event can come with privacy concerns.

Why it matters: Safety has always been a concern at large gatherings. But technology is giving venues more powerful ways to identify and track who's inside.

Zoom in: Madison Square Garden has become the flashpoint. An April Wired investigation found MSG security tracked a transgender woman through the venue over a two-year period, including when she sat down, ordered a drink and used the bathroom.

Wired said MSG did not answer detailed questions about the woman. In a court filing, MSG's lawyers said the allegation that its security chief directed facial recognition to monitor her was included to cast him in a "negative light" using "excessive, needless detail."

A separate Wired investigation in July reported that an internal MSG "talent" database contained nearly 40,000 entries for prominent people and their guests. Some were assigned risk scores, while a separate field labeled 93 entries "LGBTQIA."

MSG sued Wired for defamation over the July story, alleging the outlet used data stolen from MSG by a hacking group to falsely portray the company as targeting the LGBTQIA community for discrimination.

In its complaint, MSG said the purpose of the sexual orientation field was to "further inclusion, including by extending invitations to LGBTQIA support events."

Wired has said it stands by its reporting and plans to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.

MSG sent Axios its Wired lawsuit and a July press release when asked for comment.

Previously, MSG has been open about using facial recognition for purposes beyond security.

In 2023, MSG said it had used facial recognition since 2018 "as one of our tools to provide a safe and secure environment" and separately "as a tool to keep adverse attorneys out of our venues."

Flashback: The broader live music industry previously experimented with facial recognition.

Live Nation in 2018 partnered with and invested in Blink Identity where event goers could walk into a show without needing to scan their ticket.

Fight for the Future launched a campaign in 2019 to ban the technology at venues and music festivals. Artists including Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello joined the effort.

Reality check: Facial recognition still isn't commonplace at U.S. concert venues.

Fight for the Future director Evan Greer says MSG remains an outlier, along with James Dolan's other properties like Radio City and Sphere.

Zoom out: Privacy concerns extend beyond technology installed by venues.

Meta's smart glasses and other wearable cameras make it possible for people to record without holding up a phone. Restaurants, pubs and theaters in the U.K. have begun banning the glasses.

Some artists have held phone-free shows. Phoebe Bridgers required all attendees to lock their devices in Yondr pouches during her low-cost pop-up show at MSG and extended the model to her 2026 tour.

What to watch: Privacy advocates are trying to prevent the normalization of facial recognition before the technology spreads more widely.

Fight for the Future joined artists, privacy groups and New York City council member Shahana Hanif on Friday to push for a ban on facial recognition and other biometric surveillance in places open to the public.

"It shouldn't be up to corporate CEOs whether we have to submit to a face scan to walk into a publicly accessible venue," Greer tells Axios.

7. 👀 Everyone is watching

Illustration of police officers, Meta glasses, and security cameras

Australian DJ and producer Lenny Pearce's has become a superstar for family-friendly techno dance parties, historically an adult event format.

Why it matters: Kids' programming was central to the pandemic-era streaming boom, and it's become just as important amid a shift to live events.

Zoom in: Pearce started his foray into "baby raves" in 2022, following the birth of his daughter. Today, his "techno toddler" daytime electric music dance parties sell out major venues around the world.

The bottom line: "The movement to Live Events gives parents the opportunity to spend real and valuable time connecting with their children and their family unit as a whole," Pearce told Axios.

"We have seen across the world in the past 12 months some amazing examples of families coming together, dancing, singing and enjoying their time together, in the moment."

8. 1 fun thing: 🐣 Toddler techno

Split-panel festival scene: left shows a DJ on stage with a bold yellow "LITTLE DUCKS" backdrop and rubber ducks; right a performer on a riser with a mic, wearing a white hoodie with red and blue stripes, colorful mural behind.

Axios

Axios Media Trends Executive

August 15, 2026

1 big thing: 🏟️ IRL boom amid AI gloom