After sitting in a seemingly endless virtual queue to try and grab tickets for your favourite singer, whether that’s Harry Styles or Taylor Swift, you’re then hit with high ticket prices, booking fees and insurance charges.
Add accommodation, travel and a glitzy outfit – the costs soon mount up.
Many may think it’s affordable to stay closer to home and buy tickets for their local city’s venue in the UK, but a surprising ‘gig-tripping’ trend suggests otherwise.
It seems booking a hotel in the UK and coughing up often over £100 for a concert ticket actually costs more than a weekend away abroad to see your beloved pop star.
Harry Styles recently released tickets for his upcoming tour, Together, Together, with prices as high as £749 for VIP in the UK.
Meanwhile, some standard standing tickets to see the One Direction star were as much as £466.25.
But now, fans are increasingly skipping UK gigs and going for gigs abroad, according to data from accommodation provider Generator.
It saw a huge surge in bookings for Amsterdam on May 16 – when Harry Styles is set to perform in the city, as well as Madrid when BTS performs on June 26 and 27.
Earlier this year, fans rushed to spend hundreds of pounds to see Harry Styles perform in the UK, but many are realising it’s better value to see their favourite artist abroad
Ali Gritt, 35, from Leeds is one of many music fans who go overseas to watch pop stars perform. Pictured: Ali seeing Green Day in Boston
Ali Gritt, 35, from Leeds, recently travelled to France to see Green Day and Amsterdam to see another artist who was also touring the UK.
She estimates watching Green Day perform in the UK would have set her back £420.
The tickets were priced at around £120, a hotel stay was £180 for one night and travel came to £40, not to mention food and drink which she thinks could be £80 in total.
But by gig-tripping to Paris, which turned into a weekend away too, she only spent £280, having paid just £90 for a ticket to the gig, £70 for return flights, £60 for a stay with Generator and £60 for food and drink.
Ali described it as a ‘two-for-one’ situation, as she was able to see her favourite band whilst also enjoying a break.
She says: ‘I realised it was actually cheaper to go abroad than see the same artist in the UK.
‘It felt like a two-for-one – a gig and a mini holiday. I love the novelty of seeing live music in a different city, and it makes the whole experience more memorable.’
Ali describes seeing musicians abroad as a ‘fun, novel experience’ and says it ‘creates great memories’.
Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong performing in Paris back in 2010
‘I also enjoy seeing how shows work and how audiences react; going to an arena show in Paris was much more relaxing than in the UK,’ she says.
The Briton also recently went to Amsterdam to see another artist live instead of in the UK – she loves combining gigs with travel and experiencing different cultures.
‘I’ve just got back from Amsterdam and it was such a great trip – I’d definitely do it again,’ Ali adds.
Plenty of other music fans have done the same, and have been doing so for years.
One person on Reddit explained how they saw Lady Gaga in Amsterdam back in 2012 and recalled: ‘The tickets were much cheaper than for her shows here in the UK, with a better choice of seats.’
They managed to fit in a few days in the city, which they ‘had always wanted to visit’.
Another time, they booked a trip to Dublin to see Kylie Minogue and had planned to see her again in Tallinn, Estonia.
‘It’s a city I adore and have been on holiday to several times. To return there and see Kylie there is brilliant,’ they wrote.
Ali, pictured in Paris, describes it as a ‘two-for-one’ situation – where she gets to see her favourite artist and explore somewhere new
Similarly, plenty of Swifties found that travelling overseas bagged them cheaper tickets to the Eras Tour
‘Once again the ticket prices for her Tallinn concert are much cheaper than in the UK and with a great choice of seats. It’s fun to combine a holiday with seeing favourite artists in concert. I’d do it more often if I could afford to.’
Other concert lovers from around the world have tried the technique too, and it proved to be a great success for Americans wanting to see Taylor Swift live during her Eras Tour.
One Florida mum found that taking her teen daughters to see the singer play in Miami would have set them back approximately $12,000 (£9,072).
The average price of tickets at the time were hovering around $3,000 (£2,268).
Instead, when an opportunity for the family to travel to Portugal to see the pop star play in Lisbon arose, the mum ran the numbers and discovered it would cost the same for the family to travel overseas as it would for tickets alone for her Miami show.
She and her girls decided to head to Portugal with family friends from Chicago because they ‘could spend the same amount of money as Miami would cost and get to stay a week abroad for roughly the same,’ the mum, who did not wish to be named, previously explained to the Dailymail.com.
The American purchased re-sale tickets from StubHub in the $1,700 (£1,285) range, which she estimates would have cost them $3,000 (£2,268) each for her Miami show.
She explained the family were already travelling to Portugal for one of their daughters, a top junior player, to participate in some tournaments so they were able to ‘kill several expense birds with one stone’.
‘Between the two families, six adults and three 14-year-old girls, [we] all purchased Swift tickets, flights, at least a week of accommodations, food, transportation and wine because were were able to combine the costs of travel, tennis commitments and seeing Taylor Swift,’ she noted.
The mum-of-two added they wouldn’t have seen the Eras tour otherwise.
‘Hard to justify $12k on one night at a concert in Miami when you can spend roughly the same amount and get a vacation to Europe as well,’ she pointed out.
