Why a €25 ticket costs you €31

A show is advertised at €25. You get to the end of the checkout and it says €31.40. Nobody lied to you, and yet everyone is annoyed — fairly, because the number that gets advertised is not the number that gets paid.

Here is what sits in between.

The three charges

The booking fee. The selling platform's commission. In Spain it runs 8 to 15 % of the base price, and the range comes down to two things: how much the promoter sells per year, and whether the deal is exclusive. A large promoter negotiates under 8 %; one putting out a single date pays the rate card.

VAT on that fee. This is the part almost nobody knows. Live performance is taxed at 10 % and it is already inside the €25. But booking fees are a different service, taxed at 21 %, added on top. Which is why the final markup is always higher than the rate the platform advertises.

The issuing or delivery charge. Not always there. When it is, it is a flat amount — €0.50 to €2 — for emailing you a PDF that a server generated.

The maths

A ticket advertised at €25, with a 12 % fee:

At 15 % with a €1.50 issuing charge, the same ticket reaches €31.40.

What almost nobody knows: the artist never sees it

This is the number that changes how all of the above reads.

The fee is calculated on the base price, not on what the buyer pays. And where there is a box office percentage, that also starts from the base price. The booking fee stays with the platform.

So of the €6.40 added between the advert and the charge, the artist receives nothing. And yet when someone complains about ticket prices online, they complain about the artist.

The audience believes it is paying €31 to the band. The band is paid on €25, and keeps 25 to 40 % of that after everything else. Between what leaves the audience's pocket and what reaches the artist's there is a distance nobody shows.

Why the final price is not advertised

In theory it can be. In practice, two things happen.

Comparison. If one platform advertises €29.53 and the one next to it advertises €25, the first looks more expensive while charging the same. Whoever shows the full price first loses sales, so nobody does.

Charges vary by how you buy. The same ticket may or may not carry a delivery charge, and the percentage differs by channel. A single all-in price would force them to level, and levelling means raising the cheapest.

Since 2025, EU consumer rules have been pushing the other way — the total has to be visible before checkout begins, not at the last step — and some operators now show it from the first screen. The transition is half done.

What to look at if you sell tickets

If you are on the other side, three things that are negotiable and almost never negotiated:

The fee rebate. At volume, part of the booking fee can come back to the promoter. It appears on no rate card: you ask for it.

The issuing charge. The easiest to remove and the one that annoys buyers most, because it makes no sense to them.

Who is the seller of record. It decides who accounts for the ticket VAT and who answers to the buyer if the show is cancelled. It is settled in the ticketing contract, in a clause almost nobody reads.

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Do you work with different commissions, or does your market run differently? Write to hello@onroad.live — this article gets updated with real data from the industry.