Do tickets for your favorite artist seem more expensive to you? Maybe it’s because of “functionflation”

If Taylor Swift and Beyoncé’s tours have proven one thing, it’s that big shows are (very) expensive. And that even at 1000 euros a ticket there will always be fans to buy them, despite inflation.

This observation may be cynical, but it actually reflects a phenomenon coming directly from the United States: funflation. What is it and can we avoid it? Let’s take stock.

Where does the word funflation come from?

We owe the popularity of this economic neologism – contraction of “ fun ” AND ” inflation » – to Corie Barry, eminent Best Buy store chain, specialist in electronic equipment in the United States. She used it in mid-October in an interview with the American magazine Fortune.

Before that, a note from Bank of America, published a month earlier, reported this new consumer behavior.

What does funflation mean?

Analysts at Bank of America identify this as a post-Covid trend. Following multiple lockdowns, consumers would prefer to invest in things that make them happy, being ready to pay a high price to see stars like Taylor Swift, for example. A behavior which, in fact, increases the price of the ticket, and with it the price.

Their predictions are unanimous: we should expect to see spending increasingly directed towards services and less and less towards products.

Faced with declining sales, Corie Barry lamented the fact that potential customers prefer to invest more in concert tickets rather than investing in a television.

Is this phenomenon about to arrive in France?

This phenomenon would seem to remain very American. According to Angelo Gopee, head of event organizer Live Nation France, interviewed by our colleagues at BFMTV, That ” it is not transposable » with us because “ we are not in the same proportions at all »: on this side of the Atlantic concert tickets remain significantly cheaper.

According to trade magazine Pollstar, the average ticket price for North American tours this summer reached $120.11. This represents an increase of 7.4% compared to the previous year and 27% compared to 2019.

In reverse, ” Ticket prices in France generally remain lower than in other countries when analyzing dates of the same international tour in multiple countries » underlines a study carried out by the company PMP Strategy for Prodiss – the national union of musical and variety shows – published in June.

In a note published on Tuesday 24 October, the Asterès cabinet even goes so far as to mention a “ financed inflation ” in France. He emphasizes that “ the price increase is significantly lower (relative to overall inflation, editor’s note.) in the entertainment and culture sectors: 3.5% for recreational and sports services in September on an annual basis, 0.7% for cinemas, theatres, concerts and even -22.6% for royalties and audiovisual subscriptions ».