Coldplay’s Sold-Out Concerts Show Live Entertainment Is Thriving

“It’s crazy like this every Wednesday night,” Patrick Soluri shouts over the din between sets. Soluri is the producer of this gig through his one-man company, Prohibition Productions. (He’s also the drummer.) Revenue from his Jazz Age-themed events has more than doubled since 2019, and he plans to expand beyond New York City in 2025. “From a gradual build coming out of the pandemic, all of a sudden it just exploded,” he says.

From obscure bands in small venues like this to Coldplay selling out 90,000 seats at London’s Wembley Stadium for 10 dates next summer, 2025 is shaping up to be a spectacular year for live entertainment. The industry is seeing robust growth as people shift more of their spending to in-person encounters in the so-called experience economy. And they’re shelling out extra for premium packages to make concertgoing more memorable, including seats with a better view or elegant suites with luxury food and beverages.

“It’s crazy like this every Wednesday night,” Patrick Soluri shouts over the din between sets. Soluri is the producer of this gig through his one-man company, Prohibition Productions. (He’s also the drummer.) Revenue from his Jazz Age-themed events has more than doubled since 2019, and he plans to expand beyond New York City in 2025. “From a gradual build coming out of the pandemic, all of a sudden it just exploded,” he says.

From obscure bands in small venues like this to Coldplay selling out 90,000 seats at London’s Wembley Stadium for 10 dates next summer, 2025 is shaping up to be a spectacular year for live entertainment. The industry is seeing robust growth as people shift more of their spending to in-person encounters in the so-called experience economy. And they’re shelling out extra for premium packages to make concertgoing more memorable, including seats with a better view or elegant suites with luxury food and beverages.

Cirque du Soleil, after emerging from pandemic-induced bankruptcy in late 2020, is back to its pre-Covid numbers for ticket sales and revenue, the company says. It’s rolling out new daredevil shows in Honolulu and Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. Sphere, the multisensory entertainment venue that opened in Las Vegas in 2023, has generated so much excitement that its owner, Sphere Entertainment Co., is planning a second one in Abu Dhabi.

As of early November, industry leader Live Nation Entertainment Inc. had sold more than 20 million tickets via its Ticketmaster subsidiary for Live Nation concerts in 2025, representing double-digit growth from the same point in 2023. Ticketmaster’s sales in October were up 15% from a year earlier on all tickets, including Live Nation events, and up 23% on concerts alone.

After overcoming the darkest days of Covid-19, Live Nation took another hit from the Taylor Swift ticketing fiasco of 2022, when frustrated fans were unable to buy tickets to her Eras Tour through Ticketmaster. That led to an outcry over high concert prices and a lawsuit filed in May by the US Department of Justice, along with 30 state and district attorneys general, that seeks to break up Live Nation on charges that it’s monopolized its industry. But in the days after Donald Trump won the presidency, the company’s stock jumped on the expectation that the new administration will take a more lenient antitrust approach.

Broadway is one part of the industry not breaking box-office records, with ticket sales still below pre-pandemic levels. One theory to explain this is that senior citizens, who make up a sizable portion of the audience, are hesitant to return to large group settings. Another is that remote workers in the suburbs are less willing to buy tickets because now they have to venture all the way into Manhattan; only 14% of theatergoers came from the New York City suburbs during the 2022-23 season, according to the Broadway League, the lowest number on record.

With at least 20 shows scheduled to open in 2025, including Othello with Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal and Good Night, and Good Luck with George Clooney, Broadway producers are plunging ahead anyway. But soaring production costs, high theater rents and the possible expiration of a Covid-era New York state tax break for commercial theaters make for a tough row to hoe.

The increased digitization of modern life appears to be helping live entertainment, ironically. Streaming services and social media apps allow listeners to discover music from all over the world, leading them to buy concert tickets. “Streaming services can just never replace the energy you get from being in a live event,” says Peter Henderson, an analyst with Bank of America Securities.

City Winery, a New York-based chain of venues that are part music club, part winery, created an entire brand around sensory experience, with wine made on-site, food and concerts by musical artists such as Los Lobos and Madeleine Peyroux. Michael Dorf, the founder and chief executive officer, has parlayed his concept into a company that has 14 locations in nine cities and sales of 775,000 tickets in 2024, a record. He’ll be building venues in Detroit and Columbus, Ohio, in 2025 and expects revenue to rise by 15% to 20% for the year.

The latest advances in technology are no threat to his business, Dorf says. Artificial intelligence “is amazing and does a really great job with the senses of sight and sound, like text and images and recorded music,” he says. “But when it comes to the other senses—taste and smell and feel—AI has not figured out any kind of algorithm for that. Thank God.”