Funflation: The high price of a good time

I have a toxic trait: I’ve spent more money on concert tickets than I would ever care to add up. 

In the last few years, I’ve seen Drake and J. Cole, Billie Eilish, Noah Cyrus, Sabrina Carpenter, and Ariana Grande – among others. I have tickets to see Doja Cat later this year. I go to concerts often enough to know that seeing the ticket price is only the beginning. By the time you add the fees, parking, hotel cost, food, and concert merch, having fun has gotten really expensive. 

And yet, I keep buying the tickets. 

Apparently, there’s a word for that: “Funflation,” the rising cost of experiences coupled with our surprising willingness to keep paying for them. 

The average concert ticket cost roughly $133 last year, according to Pollstar data cited by Stacker. In 2019, it was about $96. Federal data paints a similar picture: Admission prices for movies, theaters, and concerts rose nearly 20% from January 2021 through December 2024. 

That’s a pretty significant jump in just a few years, especially when everything else in life seems to cost more, too. You would think concerts would be an easy place to cut back. Instead, people are prioritizing them. 

Concertgoers attended an average of seven shows in 2024, according to a CouponCabin survey of more than 1,000 music fans. More than a third planned to spend between $100 and $499 on concert tickets the following year, and another 17% expected to spend as much as $1,000. 

I understand why, because I’m one of them. 

I will hesitate over spending an extra $15 on something I need, then somehow convince myself that a concert ticket costing hundreds of dollars is different. And, financially speaking, it obviously isn’t. Money is money. But there’s something about an experience you really want that makes the normal rules feel a little less important. 

Concert tickets have also changed dramatically from what they used to be. Dynamic pricing is now a major part of the equation, meaning prices can fluctuate based on demand, much like airline tickets or an Uber on a busy night. The more people trying to see an artist, the more valuable those seats become. Ticketmaster introduced an early version of dynamic ticket pricing in 2011, and the practice has since become commonplace enough that buying tickets to a major tour can feel like its own competitive sport. 

There are also simply more dollars riding on live music than there used to be. As the way we consume music shifted from buying CDs and albums to streaming, touring became an increasingly important source of revenue for artists. Then the pandemic shut down live entertainment and created years of pent-up demand. When concerts came back, people were ready to go – and apparently ready to spend. 

That willingness has spread well beyond concerts. 

Just look at this summer’s World Cup. Tickets for some matches reached prices that would have sounded absurd for a sporting event not that long ago, but people still paid them. They traveled, booked hotels, took time off work, and built vacations around the chance to see something they might never have the opportunity to see again. 

That, more than any economic term, is what I think explains funflation. 

We’re paying for the ability to say, “I was there.” There’s something different about spending money on an experience you’ll remember for years. I couldn’t tell you what I bought with plenty of the money I spent five years ago, but I remember the concerts. I remember who I went with, where we sat, and that moment when the lights went down and an arena full of people could scream-sing their favorite songs.  

Maybe that’s why we’re so willing to put up with prices we complain about constantly. 

A Bankrate analyst described a post-pandemic “YOLO” attitude toward experiences, and as cliché as that sounds, there’s probably some truth to it. We lost concerts, sporting events, festivals, travel, and all the other things we once assumed would always be there. When they came back, I think we all valued them a little differently. 

It doesn’t mean I like paying them. I’ll stare at the total in my cart and wonder how a night of music possibly got this expensive. I’ll tell myself that surely there has to be a point where I stop paying these prices. 

Then an artist I love announces a tour. And there I am, back in the queue.