The Cure’s low ticket prices pay off in spades

The Cure has achieved the highest-grossing tour of their career, despite keeping ticket prices intentionally low.

The legendary British band said they wanted their North America tour “to be affordable for all fans and we have a very wide (and we think very fair) range of pricing at every show”.

The average ticket price for concerts on the Lost World Tour was $68.54 — 37% less than the average ticket price for the year’s other top tours, according to Billboard.

The 30-date tour sold 547,000 tickets for a gross of $37.5 million

The 30-date tour sold 547,000 tickets for a gross of $37.5 million. Both numbers are new career bests: the band’s previous high-water mark for tickets sold in the US was 402,000 in 1992, while they more than doubled the gross revenue of their 2016 jaunt ($18 million).

As part of the on-sale process for the tour, the band opted out of Ticketmaster’s “platinum” and “dynamically priced” ticket options, and restricted ticket transfers in markets where he was legally allowed to do so.

Frontman Robert Smith also compelled Ticketmaster to offer partial refunds for “unduly high” transaction fees.

According to the singer, the band ultimately cancelled 7,000 concert tickets listed on secondary resale websites, which were resold to fans and the original fees were donated to the charity Amnesty International.

Revisit IQ’s in-depth feature on The Cure’s biggest-ever European tour here.

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