Live tours face a huge challenge this summer
Music map #14
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Every week we send you a music map on where the music industry is going. Today we’re exploring the impact of geopolitical tension on touring this summer. If you find this useful, please forward to your friends or colleagues.
A growing problem for summer tour plans …
If you’ve ever been on tour you know that every dollar matters.
The price of flights. The cost of petrol. Buying lunch on the road. How many T-shirts you sell.
If one of those things goes wrong, the whole tour can tip into the red.
And this is what many artists are facing this summer.
It looks like, once again, the live touring industry is facing a looming shadow.
This time, due to the conflict in the Middle East.
Obviously, as a music publication, we are at not experts in geopolitics! However, we are reaching a point where things are starting to impact touring economics, and it’s worth planning ahead in case this continues.
Unlike Covid, this isn’t an immediate seismic shock to the system.
If the tensions continue, it will be more like waves that flow through the touring supply chain. It won’t grind large tours and festivals to a halt, but it could quietly hurt independent artist touring on a tight budget.
This week, we’ve mapped out four main waves that could show up over the next year.
The short-version
Wave 1 - immediate price shock to oil, energy and agriculture.
Wave 2 - rising cost of touring this summer (fuel, airline prices).
Wave 3 - rising venue costs (energy, food, artist guarantees, lower fan spending).
Wave 4 - rising ticket prices and more consolidation.
Important: This report isn’t supposed to be a panic moment. Nor is it even a concrete prediction. Hopefully this conflict de-escalates and tensions ease before the pressures really kick in. However, it is important to explain how these things are linked, and how the music industry is impacted by global tensions and outside events.
Let’s go deeper into each wave to see how the touring economics are impacted.
Wave 1 - the immediate price shock
Timeline: now
An immediate price shock across oil, energy and agriculture.
Jet fuel prices almost doubled.
Festivals and events in the immediate region cancelled.
Petrol, diesel and flight prices start to creep higher.
This chart shows the price of jet fuel. It has doubled in some regions since the start of the conflict. It takes a while to pass this cost onto airline tickets, but prices are rising already.
Oil, agriculture products and energy (liquid natural gas) are also rising, which could lead to price problems for venues later in the year.
Some music events in the Gulf region and India were immediately impacted. Shakira cancelled shows in India. Christina Aguilera cancelled her UAE shows. And Kesha’s Germany show was cancelled due to disrupted flight-routes.
Wave 2 - the artist tour budget
Timeline: spring-summer 2026
Spring and summer tours are going to feel more expensive than budgeted.
Festival fly-ins and last-minute flights may be costly.
Fuel and per-diems for van tours are going to squeeze harder than originally costed.
Some independent and mid-sized artists may be forced to cancel or re-route if budgets are too stretched.
Most spring and summer tours are already booked, with budgets approved, and tickets sold. However, once bands get on the road it might feel more expensive than they planned.
Those initial price shocks are now starting to hit flights and petrol costs, but it will get worse over the spring … just in time for the festival season.
Music fans are unlikely to cancel their plans, but they might spend less on drinks and merch if they feel squeezed by rising petrol costs.
Wave 3 - the venue and fan costs kick in
Timeline: autumn-winter 2026
Venues are hit with higher energy bills and rising costs for alcohol and food.
Music fans have less disposable income and reduce their discretionary spending. They second-guess ticket purchases, concerts, festivals and nights out.
Venues are forced to offer higher guarantees for artists who are reluctant to go on tour over budget worries.
Smaller, low-margin cities get cut from tour plans.
Merch gets more expensive as artists try to make it work with tiered and high-end merch packages.
If the conflict continues, we might start to see more damaging effects kick in around Q3. Prices could be structurally higher by this point (not a short-term blip) and that has bigger consequences.
Venues will be hit with higher energy and utilities costs when they renew their contracts — especially in Europe which is more dependent on energy imports.
Rising fertiliser costs will hit farms over the summer, then trickle down into food and alcohol prices later in the year. Venues will have to pay more to stock up.
Live agents start demanding higher guarantees for their artists, after spring-summer tours were more expensive than expected. Artists and managers might increase merch prices to make up the touring shortfall.
At the same time, music fans will start to reduce their discretionary spending because their living costs are rising (petrol and food). They might delay ticket purchases, reduce nights out, or stay closer to home.
Some smaller venues might get cut from tour plans to keep costs down, with mid-sized artists opting for regional, dense clusters of shows.
Simply put, venues are squeezed from both sides. Utilities, food, and artist booking costs go up. But ticket sales are slower.
Wave 4 - the long-term impact
Timeline: 2027 - onwards
The base-line touring cost is now structurally higher.
This compounds the trends already in place:
Ticket costs get hiked again.
More megastar artist residencies.
Indie tours limited to dense regional clusters.
Concerts increasingly become luxury purchases / experiences
Grass-roots venues continue to struggle and indie artists can’t make tours work.
You can see where this is going over the long-term. The same pattern gets worse and worse.
Touring gets more expensive, especially for independent and mid-sized artists who were already squeezing to make it work. Our grassroots venues continue to struggle, while megastars double down on the residency model and luxury experiences.
Worse in Europe and Asia
The impact will be more painful for UK and European tours than US events. Europe is more reliant on fuel and energy imports than America (which control more of its own oil and gas production).
Already, prices of jet fuel and petrol are rising faster in Europe than the US.
Asia might be the worst-effected of all, due to its ~80% reliance on Middle East oil and energy. While Asia tours are generally reserved for larger artists, it may prompt those global artists to reconsider their routes.
Hope for the best, but stay prepared
Hopefully this conflict de-escalates quickly and we see energy and oil prices return to a baseline before it has chance to really creep into the touring supply chain.
However, there are plenty of credible reports that suggests, even if the conflict ends soon, there are longer-term price impacts that will take time to return to normal.
If you’re an artist or manager it doesn’t hurt to prepare and budget accordingly.
Thanks for reading
If you found this useful, please do forward it to your colleagues or share with your friends. If you have questions or thoughts, just reply to this email or reach out to me on LinkedIn. See you next week with another music industry report.