Inflation vs The Right to Party

Inflation vs. the right to party

The year was 2005…

Doctor Who returned in spectacular fashion for the first time in 16 years. Prince Charles wed Camilla Parker Bowles, and the people loved it. Love Island hit our screens for the first time (it was a bit shit) and a Glasto ticket only set you back around £119. What a time to be alive.

Let the tapes roll forward to 2025.

Doctor Who is on their sixth new look. Now it’s King Charles and Queen Camilla taking charge. Love Island is, well, still shit—but some people still seem to watch it; you can’t win them all. Besides the global unrest, things seem the same… just magnified.

But what about Glasto we hear you say? You’re the one who brought it up, DH? What’s going on there? Fine, we’ll tell you, but it will make your stomach churn.

In 2025…, a Glasto ticket, aka a ticket to stand in a field, will set you back £378.50. That’s a 218% increase – more than twice the cost. As in… one ticket now would’ve bought you two tickets and your dinner back then.

It’s no secret that gig and festival tickets are on the rise. In 2024, Oasis tickets, which were originally priced at £135, rose to as much as £350 and higher, thanks to the advent of dynamic pricing.

Thanks for that one Ticketmaster, we love being gouged.

2005 feels like a distant memory now, the kind of ‘long ago’ that people yearn for even though it was as miserable and unjust then as it is now. But it does raise an interesting question. How much different were gig prices back then? How much did a weekend at Reading set us back? Music’s an escape for many, and we crave that escape from the mundane just as much in 2025 as we did twenty years ago.

To understand this pricey phenomenon more and more, the DH cavalry dove into live music prices back in’ day to expose the horror show that is festival pricing in the modern day.

Welcome to the Dark Horse Gig Report 2025

Inflation Plus

First things first – we need to talk about inflation. Boring, but necessary. It refers to the rate at which prices for goods and services are rising over time. In other words, inflation means that the same amount of money can buy fewer things than it could before. Bankers logic.

According to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, if you left £1 stewing, cultivating and morphing in a petri dish from 2005 to 2025, you’d have £1.73 today (that’s an inflation rate of 73% for the maths whizzes among us). As if that’s not bad enough, in the world today – it doesn’t feel like we’re getting as much bang for our buck as we should be. That’s because costs have risen by significantly more than 73%. We’ve all heard about what’s happened to the childhood favourite treat, a Freddo Frog.

Nothing is sacred

A good way to think of it is – how much does a Freddo cost nowadays? In 2005, a Freddo cost 10p – now they’re 35p. That’s a 250% increase.
We’ve been robbed of what should be a 17p chocolatey friend.

Even a humble Greggs sausage roll is rumoured (on Reddit) to have been 60p in 2005 and has seen a 100% increase to its current cost of £1.20 (in the North at least, we don’t even want to know what it costs down South).

But it’s not all about our favourite snacks; what about the arts?

Except nope, Truck Fest tickets have actually increased by 567% over the last 20 years and won’t cost you the reasonable £64 that inflation had estimated, but a whopping £250. This is the biggest increase in festival tickets over the last two decades; these tickets cost what they were estimated to cost in the year 2067 (42 years in the future).

It’s Reading and Leeds fest that’s strayed least from its original 2005 ticket price (£125). However, that’s not to say it’s all guns ‘n’ roses—ticket prices should have risen to £217 by 2025, yet they’ve still managed to exceed that estimate, (congratulations to them), having increased by more than one and a half times (160%) their 2005 value to £325 (the price estimated for the year 2035). While it might still make your eyes water, trust us…it’s the best of a bad bunch.

On average, a weekend forgetting about the perils of life (a festival ticket) in 2005 would’ve cost you around £82, which inflated to 2025 value would be £142. And yet, in reality, we’re paying an average of £301.24, which is more than two and a half times (267%) the estimated cost.

We asked our music industry insider, AJ Sutherland (Production Manager for artists such as Tate McRae and Mura Masa) what he thought of the exponentially increasing cost of live music.

He said:

Festivals are priced like it’s 2047

A ticket to Glastonbury in 2005 was £119, which by 2025, following inflation, should now cost £206. Not too much of a gut punch; it’s been 20 years after all.

So, where have the maniacs pricing these events gotten this year’s ticket price of £378.50 from? Alert the media, time travel has been perfected and the pricing agents have travelled to us from the year 2042 (the year we were estimated to hit this ticket price through inflation).

Not looking to splurge almost £400 on a festival? Okay, what about a more low-key festival like… Truck Festival in Oxford? In 2005 you could go for £37.50, that’s already a tenth of what you’d be spending for Glastonbury, and with inflation a ticket to Truck Festival in 2025 should only be £64…

“The obvious starting place is the so-called ‘decline of the record industry’, which can also be seen as the rise of streaming. The social media age has brought opportunities for independent artists just as much as it’s upset the status quo for veteran major labels.

“Whether you consider this good or bad, it certainly has driven the increase in live shows and festivals. Bands have to lean into live performances to support their careers and stay visible and relevant among the TikTok generation.”

So, on average, festivals are priced like it’s 2047, more than 20 years ahead of their time. But are they go-getters or crooks?

Whilst we were moaning about price gouging, AJ swooped in with that all-important context.

“When I was going to festivals in 2005, there were a few genres catered to, but we definitely weren’t spoiled for choice like we are now. Take Truck Fest, it’s a very different festival now than it was then.

“The number of stages, acts on the bill, and the notoriety of those names have dramatically increased as it’s grown. That gives some justification to the ticket price increase compared to Reading & Leeds, which is much the same beast it was back then.”

Average gig ticket has increased by over 200% in 20 years…

Is it just festivals that have been racing against inflation and winning?

And is it really more cost-effective to go to a festival and see many artists in one go rather than just seeing your favourite bands and artists on tour?

Compared to the 267% increase of festival tickets, the average gig ticket has only increased by 237%. What a deal! In 2005 you could be spending an average of around £30 to go to a concert, which should have only increased to £54.25 by 2025, according to inflation.

But the reality is that, on average, a single gig ticket is now the, frankly, engorged price of £84.35. A price point we weren’t due to hit until 2038.

On this, AJ made the point that many of the artists we were seeing in 2005 now opt for the almighty arena tour in 2025, over the grimy club gig popular in the early 2000s.

“Back in 2005, an act might play 20 club shows in towns throughout the UK over a month-long tour. Now, they’re more likely to play to the same number of fans, but they can do it in a week in just four or so major market arenas (likely London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow).

“50,000 tickets at arena prices is much more revenue than 50,000 tickets at club prices. There are also some cost efficiencies to a one-week tour: less wages to pay, equipment rental, travel expenses and accommodation.

“A sad side effect of these stacked trends is that grassroots venues are closing while more arenas are opening, and the biggest artists in the world are breaking records with their profits while upcoming and less mainstream bands struggle to keep going.”

So, there you have it folks — the hidden backstory from the industry side of live music pricing.

But these arena tours and the need for fan travel only adds to the pain of payment for live music lovers. Because it’s not just the ticket, is it? When taking into consideration the cost of travel, a pint (just one?), your choice of nicotine product and dinner…we worked all that out too.

Back in 2005 a night out on the town probably looked a little like this:

But, what are we talking about? It’s 2025, cigarettes are out and vapes are in. Who’s paying for a packet of cigarettes before a gig these days? Not to mention the price of a chippy tea—it’s a quick Big Mac over the luxury of a cod and chips these days.

Let’s see what difference a vape makes. Surely we’ll see some sickly sweet savings drip in…?

We’re still doubling our costs. Is there any hope?

Sober nights out are gaining traction, and maybe that’s the best thing for our wallets. Maybe swapping out our pints for a soft drink will bring those numbers down…?

One last thing before you go…

Band t-shirts, your favourite momento, your little slice of the night of your life…

In 2005 you could take home a wearable souvenir for around £15, but anyone who’s been to a gig in the last few years knows that these days it’ll cost you a kidney. Or £40, whichever you have to hand.

Not to mention ‘2005’ is now considered vintage, and it’s a whole other rage and rant to start talking about the vintage band merch market.

Not very punk rock pricing

So there you have it. The stark reality of attending gigs and festivals in 2025 paints a sobering picture for music lovers across the UK. The days of nabbing a Glasto ticket for a mere £119 seem like a distant memory, replaced by eye-watering prices that would make even the most die-hard fans think twice.

For those determined to keep the music alive without breaking the bank, it seems the recipe is clear: travel by bus, stick to soft drinks, and perhaps consider lining a con-gloms pocket (Maccie’s) over that family business (chippy tea). Concessions must be made.

AJ has talked us down from some of our fury but says:

“The question I’ll leave you to debate is, has the rise in ticket prices been proportional? If inflation accounts for 73% of the price rise of a festival ticket on average, does the increased quality of the product we are buying equal the remaining 194%?”

It’s a far cry from the carefree days of 2005, but then again, so is pretty much everything else these days.

As we navigate this new landscape of astronomical prices, one thing remains certain: our love for live music.

Whether it’s worth the cost is a decision each fan will have to make for themselves. But one can’t help but wonder: in another 20 years, will we be looking back at 2025 as the ‘good old days’ of affordable gigs?

Only time – and whether millennials own houses by then – will tell.

Disclaimer

Believe it or not, this data collection involved crawling through 20 years of internet muck from back before everyone posted everything on the internet. Some data was not readily available. Why? Because someone didn’t want it to be.

Although the above paints a dark, dingy picture of music pricing over 20 years, it is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.

We did our best, and it’s bad news either way.

If you want to pick apart the data

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