Fans Are Planning Trips Around Live Music. Here's What Our Bookings Show.

Live music has become one of the biggest reasons people travel. New research from Live Nation, presented at Skift in September 2026, found that live music fans take 38% more trips than other travelers, and that 69% plan trips around tour dates and festival lineups.

None of this surprises us. When we started in 2021, we set out to build the best platform for this audience: fans who travel for live music. Below, we put Live Nation's findings next to our own booking data and look at what it means for festival organizers.

What Live Nation found

Live Nation's Custom Global Travel Study surveyed 3,300 people across 13 countries, including 2,200 live music goers. Among its findings:

• 87% of live music goers are traveling more, or the same amount, for live music, and younger fans are the most likely to be traveling more.

• 70% say live music is becoming a major driver of their travel decisions.

• 85% are interested in bundled packages, and 83% in travel packages curated around events.

• 88% consider accommodation when deciding whether to travel, and 71% have struggled to find lodging near an event.

• Fans spend about 40% of their trip budget on the event itself and 60% on the rest of the trip.

• Asked who they would trust most to offer a bundled live music travel package, the top answer was the festival or event organizer (40%), tied with online travel partners and ahead of ticketing platforms, hotel brands and airlines.

What we see in our own bookings

Surveys measure what people say. Bookings show what they do. Here is what fans did across music festival packages sold on Jampack over recent festival seasons:

• 80% of package buyers traveled from out of state. The median buyer lives about 390 miles from the festival, and more than 4 in 10 live 500 miles or more away. At destination festivals it can top 95%.

• Fans come from further than you might think. About 6.5% of package buyers at US festivals are billed from outside the US.

• 94% of package orders include a hotel stay. Among those, 99% cover two or more nights and 3 in 4 cover three or more, with an average of about 3.5 nights.

• Fans commit early. Most packages are booked months before the festival, many of them as soon as tickets go on sale.

• Fans travel together. A typical order is two guests sharing a room.

Live Nation's research describes fans who plan trips around music. Our bookings show those trips in action: most package buyers are traveling hundreds of miles, staying several nights and booking months ahead.

What this means for festival organizers

1. Fans want to buy the trip from you

The most useful finding in Live Nation's study for organizers may be that fans trust festivals and event organizers most to sell them a bundled travel package. When fans leave your site to book a hotel elsewhere, you lose part of the fan relationship along with the booking. Offering official packages keeps the whole trip in a channel fans already trust.

2. The ticket is only part of what fans spend

If the event accounts for roughly 40% of a fan's trip budget, most of what fans spend to attend your festival goes somewhere else. Official ticket-and-hotel packages let organizers take part in that spending, without raising ticket prices.

3. Lodging is where fans struggle

Most fans weigh accommodation before they decide to go, and 71% have had trouble finding a place to stay. For a festival whose median package buyer lives nearly 400 miles away, lodging decides whether a fan attends. A fan who can't find a room may not buy a ticket at all. Contracted hotel blocks, offered at checkout, remove that obstacle.

4. Travelers decide early, so be ready at on-sale

With most packages booked months ahead, the fans most likely to travel make their decisions early. Having packages live from the first on-sale captures that demand when it is highest, and gives organizers an early read on where their audience is coming from.

How Jampack helps

Jampack powers official ticket-and-hotel packages for festivals and live events. We source and contract hotel inventory, build packages that fit your ticket tiers, and handle checkout, payment plans and guest support, all under your festival's brand. You get a new revenue stream and real-time reporting, and your fans get their whole trip in one booking.

Book a demo to add packages to your next on-sale, or see how Jampack works for festivals.

About the data

Live Nation figures are from the Live Nation Custom Global Travel Study (base: 2,200 live music goers in 13 countries), as published in Live Nation's September 22, 2026 release and presentation. Jampack figures are from orders on the Jampack platform, excluding cancelled and test orders. Figures are for music festival packages from recent festival seasons. Out-of-state share and distance are based on customer billing addresses; distances are straight-line miles from the billing city to the festival.