WHAT YOU GET FOR A £500 VIP POP PACKAGE (HINT: IT’S NOT EVEN A GIG TICKET)
When Louisiana-born pop star Addison Rae performed at London’s Brixton Academy in August, fans were offered a transcendental experience. For an eye-watering £475 they could buy a “Divine VIP Upgrade” package that included a “private sound bath” with Rae and her backing dancers on the day of the London concert.
To the uninitiated, a sound bath is a meditation session done to the soothing hum of bowls being “played”, Tibetan-style. The Divine VIP package also allowed fans to bring three items to be autographed by Rae, included a photo opportunity and offered a “Q&A session” with the star (complete with asterisk stating that “all questions may not be answered”). Strikingly, however, the package didn’t even include a ticket to the actual concert.
Then take Oasis. A private box to watch the Gallagher brothers’ recent Wembley shows cost £899 per person, while a VIP standing ticket, which came with an imitation flight case ful of tour merchandise (a scarf, guitar picks and the like) and entry into an Oasis exhibition, cost £450. Meanwhile, a Kiss fan called Dwayne Rosado recently paid $12,500 (£9,400) to be bassist Gene Simmons’s roadie for a day (concert ticket not included).
Welcome to the increasingly bonkers world of VIP concert packages, a flourishing frontier in the £28bn-a-year global live music industry. With artists’ income from recorded music plummeting due to streaming, live music is booming. The average ticket price globally is £104, according to trade publication Pollstar. But VIP add-ons – whether that be “meet-and-greets”, merchandise or seats close to the stage with a private bar – can double or triple the income for artists and their promoters.
“Live concerts are the holy grail where popular artists are really making their money, and a backstage VIP experience and merch goodies are things that ticket buyers have become increasingly keen on over the past decade,” says one record label veteran.
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Of course value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. One person’s rip-off is another person’s “best day ever”. The above packages divided fans’ opinions. “Insane,” was the verdict of some Rae fans on TikTok about the sound bath package. “If I was rich, I definitely would,” countered another.
Facebook reviews of Oasis’s merchandise ranged from “a box full of tat” to “one of the better VIP merch bundles I’ve seen”, although some fans joked that Liam Gallagher would have to deliver it in person to make it worth the price. And what about Kiss fan Rosado’s day as a roadie? “I’m going to die happy,” he told the New York Times.
Fans have always wanted to get closer to their idols. Elvis Presley regularly held free meet-and-greets with devotees that lasted hours. “My fans want my shirt. They can have my shirt. They put it on my back,” he famously said. But in subsequent decades, performers realised that fans’ proximity – and loyalty – could be monetised instead.
VIP packages were pioneered in the mid-1980s by New Yorker Shelley Lazar, a teacher with a side hustle in running guest lists for touring artists such as Elton John. Realising that mega-fans existed, Lazar started bundling together a venue’s best seats with a pre-show dinner party and some merch, selling the caboodle at a premium, then splitting the profits with the venue’s sales team and the artist.
She worked on the Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels stadium tour in 1989, which revolutionised the notion of VIP seating; Keith Richards called her the “MFTQ”, or “mother-f------ ticket queen”. Within a decade Lazar’s packages included backstage tours, soundcheck access and top seats at gigs by artists including Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan, according to Dean Budnick and Josh Baron’s 2012 book Ticket Masters. Lazar’s mantra, “There’s no such thing as a sold-out show”, reflected the new industry reality that anyone could get a piece of the pie… for a price. (Lazar even managed VIP tickets for events featuring the Dalai Lama and two Popes.)
Artists got creative. In 1991, Metallica introduced the Snake Pit to their tours, a circular pit in the stage for superfans. Industry prices rocketed. The Bon Jovi “Diamond VIP experience” in 2010 cost $1,875 (£1,406) per ticket and included a branded chair you could take home with you.
Such things became industry standard in 2011 when concert behemoth Live Nation launched a dedicated “VIP experiences” arm called VIP Nation. At Beyoncé’s recent Cowboy Carter tour, packages on offer included the “Buckin’ Honey Pit” (inclusive of a general standing ticket, a plastic lanyard and early entry into the venue) and the “Club Ho-Down Experience” (permitting access to the area directly in front of the stage). Yours for the cost of a five-star package holiday to Tenerife.
But despite silly prices, the boss of a large concert promoter says such packages aren’t as lucrative as one might expect. “The money isn’t as good as you think, because it comes with a cost,” he says. “If you’re selling a £150 merch and ‘meet the artist’ pack, you’ve got to pay for the merch, which might be £30. If it includes a signed bespoke poster, someone’s got to print those posters, carry them around the world, get the artist to sign them, and make sure people get them. There are knock-on costs. For a meet-and-greet, the artist needs to pay for two more security guards and stand there for hours. A lot of artists don’t do them anymore because the profit margin is not that much.”
Soundcheck parties are becoming increasingly popular instead. For around £200, fans get a lanyard, watch the pre-show soundcheck and attend a band Q&A. Given that the band must soundcheck anyway, it’s money for nothing (lanyard aside) from their perspective. “The artists don’t have to touch anybody or have their picture taken. It’s easier,” says the live music executive.
One artist who is on a slightly different trajectory is Taylor Swift. Although she did sell multiple VIP packages to her recent Eras tour (fans could select from a variety of “seats with merch” bundles costing up to £662), she is perhaps better known for selling numerous versions of her albums on special edition vinyl or CD.
Swift’s latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, is available to buy in a whopping 23 different physical configurations (with more probably on the way); this includes 12 CD and eight vinyl versions, as well as one cassette version. Fans often buy many iterations, boosting Swift’s coffers and the album’s chart position at the same time. Exploitative or manna from heaven for Swifties? You decide.
But by far the most profitable part of the VIP ecosystem is the seat under your bum (unless a Bon Jovi fan has swiped it). Premium seats near the stage can be sold for triple the price of normal seats, and it “doesn’t cost the artist anything”, the insider says. Indeed, if an artist sells 1,000 seats per night in a 20,000-capacity arena at the higher price, then they get the income of 11 shows for every 10 performed. Ker-ching – all paid for by VIPs.
The popular British Summer Time (BST) concert series in London’s Hyde Park has a dizzying array of ticket prices. For country music superstar Garth Brooks’s show next June, the options include (excluding booking fee): general admission (£99.95); primary entry, which allows punters in early (£119.95); gold circle, the standing area in front of the stage (£199.95); gold VIP Hydeaway (£249.95); diamond VIP experience (£299.95); ultimate diamond VIP experience (£449.95); and Great Oak Roof Garden – giving “superb” views, “curated British menus”, a private bar and more – starting at £799. Strewth.
When the Stones played Hyde Park in 1969, the three tiers were “sit”, “stand” or “climb a tree”. Today the map of the BST site could pass for a TV test card, so numerous are the different coloured zones.
But this, says a BST spokesman, is rather the point. “Fan choice is key, and the common thread across every ticket category, from general admission to premium hospitality, is value for money. World-class headliners, an incredible line-up of artists and a first-class environment and service is what goes into every ticket. That’s why BST caters to all fans, at all price points,” he says.
I agree on the value and choice thing, painful though it can be. Seven years ago, when the Stones played the London Stadium, I paid to upgrade to their golden circle. Do I remember the money today? No. Do I remember being close to the action as Mick Jagger and Florence Welch sang Wild Horses? Of course I do.
The important thing is to do your homework, says Lisa Webb, a consumer law expert at Which?. She says that VIP ticket packages can offer fans an “unforgettable experience” but often come with a premium price tag that doesn’t reflect the perks included. “We’ve seen ticket sellers marketing expensive options for gigs that don’t offer significant upgrades, so make sure you do your research on what is included in the package, to ensure you’re getting something that you feel is worth the extra cost,” Webb says.
What’s clear is that VIP packages are here to stay. Last month, Michael Rapino, the chief executive of Live Nation, argued that concert tickets are still under-priced. According to Live Nation’s own figures, 65 per cent of the tickets it sold globally in 2024 cost less than $100 (£74) while only 2 per cent cost more than $500. “I always joke [that in] sports it’s like a badge of honour to spend £70k for [basketball team New York] Knicks courtside. [Yet] they’d beat me up if we charge £800 for Beyoncé, right? We have a lot of runway left, right?” Rapino says. “The concert is under-priced [and] has been for a long time.”
Again, value is in the eye of the beholder. On July 12 this year, fans of Ozzy Osbourne paid £666 for a photo with the Black Sabbath legend and his family at Comic Con in Birmingham. Ten days later, the Prince of Darkness was dead. To those that shelled out, that photo will be utterly priceless.
2025-10-14T14:00:54Z
