2025 Fan Spending Trends at Concerts

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With the 2025 live event season in full swing, we’re seeing some surprising shifts in fan behavior—especially around attendance and merchandise spending. While fewer fans are attending shows on average, the fans who are showing up are spending more than ever. Here’s what we’re seeing so far.

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The TL;DR:

•  Fans are buying more items, not just paying more
• Offer lower-cost items like accessories to capture casual buyers
• Plan by genre — K-Pop, Punk, and Dance fans are top spenders
• Optimize booths for multi-item purchases if you are selling smaller type accessories, make them easily viewable and accessible
• Watch for softness in Hip Hop, Metal, and Latin markets

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More Items, Not Higher Prices

Fans are spending more at the merch booth in 2025 — but not because prices have gone up.

Average merch revenue per fan is up 8% year-over-year, even as the average t-shirt price dropped slightly from $38 to $37. This means fans are buying more items, not just paying more per item.

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What Are Fan

The top-selling merch item remains the t-shirt, but there’s movement lower on the list worth watching:

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Top 10 Best-Selling Merch Items (April–May 2025)

1. T-Shirt
   
   
2. Pullover Hoodie
   
   
3. Hat
   
   
4. Sweatshirt ⬆
   
   
5. Koozie
   
   
6. Poster
   
   
7. Accessories 🆕
   
   
8. Bag
   
   
9. Long Sleeve Shirt
   
   
10. Vinyl ⬇

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Accessories specifically have shown increased interest, with them being an add on for fans, specifically for k-pop, pop, metal, and EDM.

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Genre Spotlight: Who’s Spending the Most?

Fans in K-Pop, EDM, and Punk are spending like superfans. Make sure your setup is built to move merch fast, surface real-time insights, and scale to the moment — because with atVenu, every genre can become a revenue genre.

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• K-Pop continues to show fan spending above all other genres, up +61% from 2024.
• EDM is showing a surge in both percentage of fans buying merchandise and fan spend with a 52% increase from last year during this time.
• Country, Funk, and Punk are all up +31%.
• Heavy Metal and Hard Rock are down -30% and -23%, respectively.
• Pop is showing a slight decline from 2024, down -5%.

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Average $/Head by Genre in 2025

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Fans Are Still Showing High Interest In Merchandise

2025 saw some surprising shifts in who’s buying merch by genre, and the data proves one thing: if you’re not ready to convert fans into buyers, you’re leaving real revenue behind.

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% of Fans Buy Merch

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Stay tuned as we continue to monitor fan spending behavior at concerts!

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Cheers!