In October 2024, Heat magazine’s list of the UK’s 30 richest celebrities under 30 ranked Harry Styles at the very top, with an estimated wealth of £200m. (He’d doubtless have fared well in last year’s survey, too, but he’s 31 now.)

Whatever your views on the fabulous wealth accrued by a small elite of megastars, and regardless of your opinion of Styles’ musical merits, that figure doesn’t sit well next to the headlines he is now making.

Styles announced a record-breaking 12-date residency at Wembley stadium this week, with ticket prices for seats ranging from £44.10 in the faraway stands right up to £466.24, while bog standard general standing tickets will set you back £144.65 – and a berth in the fancy Circle, Disco, Square and Kiss standing enclosures up to £279.45. Furthermore, access to the presale was restricted to American Express cardholders and anyone who pre-ordered Styles’ new album, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, which will be released on 6 March. The pricing has sparked an enormous backlash among Styles’ fans for making the shows inaccessible to vast swathes of his audience, a significant proportion of whom are very young.

But Styles is no outlier. The attitude towards ticket pricing in the entertainment industry seems to be, overwhelmingly, simply to charge as much as you can get away with charging. In recent years, Adele, Taylor Swift and Oasis have, like Styles, received intense criticism for their steep ticket prices. The last of those three came under particular scrutiny when it became apparent that dynamic pricing was at play, meaning that the original stated face value of tickets for Oasis gigs was essentially meaningless.

In........

© The Guardian