The Pussycat Dolls are the latest music act to cancel swaths of a US arena or stadium tour amid lagging ticket sales. It’s part of a spreading epidemic the industry is calling “blue dot fever,” after the blue dots that represent unsold seats on Ticketmaster’s website.
Others who recently succumbed include Meghan Trainor, Zayn, Jelly Roll, and Post Malone. Trainor and Zayn abandoned all of their US arena dates, while Post Malone and Jelly Roll shut down one-third of their co-headlining US stadium tour. Those venues had more open seats than a 4pm Friday work meeting, but only the Pussycat Dolls publicly blamed poor sales for canceling.
Why so blue? Mainly, everything is more expensive:
- The average concert ticket price in 2026 is $144, up from $115 last year and $82 in 2020.
- Meanwhile, the cost of gas has exploded since the start of the Iran war and hurt the profit margins of tours that rely on transportation to get between locations.
Also: There’s stiff entertainment competition this summer from the FIFA World Cup, which is being hosted in North America.
Big picture: Three weeks ago, a jury found Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, guilty of acting as a monopoly. However, some experts believe that it may not lead to a long-term decline in ticket prices.—DL
This report was originally published by Morning Brew.