Music Moves: Mapping the Miles of Music Lovers

Key Takeaways

• Latin Music fans have spent the most to attend a concert: $466, including ticket price, transportation, and lodging.
• New York City, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas are the top concert destinations.
• 1 in 6 EDM fans would travel to a different continent for a concert or festival.
• Drake fans would spend up to $625 to see him in concert.

The Lengths of Music Fandom

Thanks to phones and streaming platforms, we can listen to music anywhere and any time, but any music fan will tell you live concerts are the best way to experience music. How far are music fans willing to go to hear their favorite artists perform live? We surveyed 1,000 music enthusiasts across different genres to determine which music fans are the most devoted.

Following the Beat

For the unlucky fans who don’t live in a major concert hub, experiencing their favorite artists live requires some legwork. Let’s see how far fans have traveled to attend a concert.

After a season of canceled concerts, many music lovers are willing to travel quite a distance to catch a live show. According to our survey, 14% of fans drove over 500 miles to attend at least one concert. However, eagerness to travel varied widely by genre. EDM fans spent an average of 7 hours traveling via plane to attend a concert or festival, and rap fans averaged the same on the train. Fans of Diplo were the most music hungry, traveling up to an average of 184 miles to catch a concert. In contrast, 54% of pop fans only drove less than 100 miles to bop to their favorite tunes.

Top Traveling Fan Bases

Whether the distance is great or small, music fans often have to flock to large cities to catch the most popular artists in concert. Let’s see which fan bases visit the bright lights of big towns more often and which cities they travel to most.

Nashville might be known as the Music City, but New York City, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas hosted more out-of-town concertgoers than the Tennessee hub. The Big Apple is a hotspot for music fans with an impressive roster of upcoming summer music festivals. As for the most popular music genres among city travelers, fans of blues (79%), indie rock (79%), and folk (78%) topped the charts for the percentage of those who have traveled to a different city for a concert.

Fans of other genres preferred to stay in their own neck of the woods. Almost half of classical (45%) and country (44%) music fans said they wouldn’t travel outside their state to attend a concert. On the other hand, EDM fans aren’t even content to stay in their own hemisphere, as 1 in 6 said they would travel to a different continent to attend a concert. The good news is those in the U.S. have plenty of options, including these epic European EDM festivals.

The Financial Investment of Fandom

Traveling for live music is a blast, but it can make a rather large dent in your wallet. Let’s see which fan bases are willing to spend the most money to experience their favorite music up close and personal.

Live music might be back, but rampant scalping and surcharges have brought ticket prices to a fevered pitch. After patiently (or impatiently) waiting for their favorite artists to return to the stage, some fans are balking at the number of zeroes they need to cough up to meet the spike in ticket prices. A few unlucky fans know all too well the risks of investing in a high-price concert ticket, such as a Taylor Swift fan who lost $500 in a ticket scam.

But not all fans are singing the blues about ticket prices. Latin music fans have spent the most, with an average investment of $466, including ticket cost, travel, and lodging. But they said they’re willing to spend as much as $614 to see a show if they have to. As for individual artists, fans of Tyler, the Creator were willing to spend the most to see him in concert at $694, and Drake fans would spend up to $625 to see his energy live.

Moving and Grooving

Despite sacrificing time, money, and travel, many music fans remain eager to see their favorite artists perform in concert. And most artists are just as eager to entertain their fans, working incredibly hard to make their concerts once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Whether a concert is around the corner, in another city, or across the globe, it’s clear that there’s no substitute for the live music experience.

Methodology

We surveyed 1,000 music fans to explore which fan bases travel the most and spend the most on concerts. In order to determine the average hours fans traveled for a concert, we reverse-calculated based on the distance traveled and mode of transportation taken. For planes, we used the equation (distance / 517) + 3. The 3 accounted for an estimated 3 hours in the airport. For ground travel, we assumed an average speed of 45 mph for cars and 90 mph for trains.

About Price4Limo

No matter where you’re traveling for a concert, Price4Limo will get you there in style. We have over 20 years of experience coordinating private ground transportation for these and many other types of special events.

Fair Use Statement

Want to send this article to a concert going music lover? You are free to share this study for noncommercial purposes only but must link back to this page so readers can access our full music stats and methodology.