Musicians are canceling their tours. Is blue dot fever to blame?
With several high-profile artists canceling their tours, social media is abuzz with claims the industry is suffering from blue dot fever, as tickets go unpurchased. But is that the real driver behind the industry’s woes?
First it was Meghan Trainor and Post Malone. Then came Dolly Parton, Zayn and the Pussycat Dolls.
“When we announced the PCD FOREVER Tour, we hoped to bring the show to fans across the world,” the Pussycat Dolls announced on Instagram on May 4 after launching what was supposed to be a reunion tour. “After taking an honest look at the North American run, we’ve made the difficult and heartbreaking decision to cancel all but one of the North America dates.”
Within a few months, nearly a dozen musicians and bands have either cancelled or postponed their tours, leading to speculation that so-called “blue dot fever” was to blame. The term, which has only recently been coined on social media, refers to the blue dots on Ticketmaster’s platform that indicate empty, unsold seats.
Is blue dot fever, along with the anxiety around high price tickets at a time of high inflation and skyrocketing gas prices –– really to blame for this recent rush of tour cancellations? Or is it a symptom of broader issues for the music industry?
Andrew Mall, an associate professor of music at Northeastern University, doesn’t completely dismiss blue dot fever as a social media-driven buzzword. The current economic reality is impossible to ignore and is likely playing a role in whether concertgoers choose to buy tickets, he said.
“People have less money to spend on luxuries because the cost of living is going up,” Mall said. “Cost of fuel, cost of energy [have] been exacerbated by the war in Iran, and that eats into peoples’ disposable income.”
Northeastern Global News, in your inbox.
Sign up for NGN’s daily newsletter for news, discovery and analysis from around the world.
However, not everyone has bought into the panic around blue dot fever.
Joe Berchtold, president and chief financial officer for Live Nation called it “a nice catchy phrase that is absolutely devoid of facts” during a recent investor conference. He called blue dot fever “a good marketing program” for scalpers frustrated by artists who are pricing their tours more in line with market value.
Regardless of what market value is, it’s true that the cost of concert tickets has only gone up since the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2019 and 2022 the average general admission concert ticket price increased from $96.17 to $106.07, the first time it had crossed $100, according to Pollstar, a global music industry data tracker. The price peaked in 2024 at $135.92, but dropped to $132.62 in 2025.
But Mall also points to factors within the music industry that could be leading certain kinds of artists to cancel their tours. Leaving aside the likes of Dolly Parton and Zayn, who both cited medical issues as the reason for their tour cancellations, most of the artists who have cancelled their shows fall right below the industry’s A-list tier of talent, Mall said.
It might be that there’s more competition and less money that fans feel comfortable spending on live music from such artists, Mall observed, especially given the series of recent high profile concerts from Ariana Grande, Olivia Rodrigo and older reunion acts like Rush and Oasis drawing audience attention.
Editor’s Picks
It also raises questions about how tours are booked in the first place, according to Mall. The first-tier Taylor Swifts and Beyoncés of the world are guaranteed to sell out stadiums. But one of the hazards for the second tier of talent is management booking them in venues that are too big, Mall said. It’s a kind of calculus that artists’ managers and agents are constantly trying to account for: Does the audience demand justify the cost of staging a tour?
“That job is hard, and there are aspects of it that average fans don’t really understand or maybe underestimate how difficult it can be,” Mall said.
Increasingly, however, audiences are looking at a concert ticket not just as the portal to a live experience but as an asset to be banked or traded on secondary resale markets, Mall said.
Behaviors that used to be reserved for the scalpers that Berchtold blames for blue dot fever are now spilling over into general audiences for often quite legitimate reasons, Mall explained.
“This pair of tickets is worth $1,200; I paid $400 for it. Do I go to the concert or do I sell them?” Mall said, speaking about how expensive and sought-after tickets to Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour were. “That’s a difficult decision, especially for young people to make. That difference can actually be very significant. It can mean paying for rent.”
The decision is also hard for those who are considering buying tickets secondary resale markets.
“If you, as a concertgoer, can always buy aftermarket tickets, then you as a person who holds a pair of tickets knows that that’s probably always going to be an option, should you choose to do it,” Mall added.
