August 15, 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of a pivotal moment in live music history: The Beatles’ infamous performance at Shea Stadium. What began as an unprecedented attempt to accommodate the Fab Four’s overwhelming popularity has evolved into a touchstone of pop culture—the modern stadium tour. Today’s stadium concerts are more than just supersized live shows; they have become cultural phenomena and socio-economic markers. Perhaps most intriguingly—at least to me—they are also neuroscientific experiments in mass synchronization.

Advertisement

Advertisement

In 1965, pop music’s demographic was dominated by teenagers with disposable income and a desire to break the self-imposed boundaries of their post-Depression-era parents. The Beatles’ audience at Shea was overwhelmingly young, predominantly female, and distinctly American. In the decades since, stadium audiences have expanded in every conceivable way. Through the '80s and '90s artists like U2, Madonna, and Michael Jackson drew increasingly global, multi-generational crowds. Today, truly global music acts like BLACKPINK and Bad Bunny play to stadium audiences worldwide, reflecting the increasing multicultural appeal of contemporary music. And touring artists like Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Cyndi Lauper, and The Rolling Stones now draw in new followers aside lifelong fans, with three generations of family members often attending together.

Fandom itself has transformed. Where fans once relied on the vagaries of radio play and magazine spreads to engage with their favorite artists, today’s fans form tightknit communities on social media platforms like TikTok and Discord. Through these digital spaces, enthusiasts exchange theories, share memes, decode Easter eggs, and coordinate elaborate travel plans and ticket-buying strategies months in advance. The shift from passive consumption to active participation has transformed how fans engage with pop music, turning concerts into global events that have expanded well beyond geography and generations. 

Advertisement

Yet this evolution has created new challenges, chief among them, the skyrocketing cost of being part of the experience. We’ve gone from $5.10 to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium to Eras Tour tickets with face values ranging from $49 to $449 reselling for up to........

© Time