For decades, U2 has sold out some of the world’s biggest venues. Bono says the band has one longstanding way of making those shows more accessible.
On The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast, Bono said U2 has “very little” say over ticket prices for its live shows. Still, he said, the band has long worked to make some front-row seats less expensive.
“What we do in our band is we take the best seats in the house — we’ve done this all our life — and make sure that they’re often the most affordable,” Bono said.
That doesn’t mean U2 objects to charging some fans a premium.
“We also have no problem separating rich people from their money,” Bono said. “You know, as we say, rich people have feelings, too. If they want to pay very high prices, we’ve no problem.”
Bono said the aim is for fans to feel good about what they are paying for. He said U2 shows have “a level of depth” where people who don’t normally agree politically can “feel safe.”
“If they’re in America, we want people to feel really good about the choice to pay a ticket — and probably pay too much for it — to see us,” Bono said.
U2 performed 40 nights at the Sphere in Las Vegas from September 2023 through March 2024. The official announcement said tickets for the residency started at $140, and that the venue’s larger capacity would allow “60% of tickets to be priced under $300,” alongside a “limited number of premium-priced tickets” at each show.
High ticket prices have become a defining feature of the modern concert experience. The average ticket price for the top 100 tours rose from $96.17 in 2019 to $132.62 in 2025, per data from Pollstar, a music industry trade publication.
Dynamic pricing, which allows prices to rise with demand, has helped drive costs higher. On the secondary market, tickets can also be relisted at far higher prices than their original face value.
There are also longstanding concerns about consolidation in the ticketing industry. In April, a federal jury found Live Nation liable for antitrust violations, determining that its market monopoly led Ticketmaster to overcharge customers by $1.72 per ticket from May 2020 to 2024.
Sports fans are facing the same sticker shock. A Business Insider analysis of past ticket data found that a Category 1 ticket to this year’s World Cup final cost $10,990 in April’s open sale. At the previous seven World Cups, the equivalent ticket cost between $988 and $1,783 in today’s dollars.
