Will speculation Charli XCX is travelling below the equator toextend her “brat summer” to the Southern Hemisphere be proven correct or were those frenetic fluoro-lime billboards merely goading us? Did Chappell Roan give the game away all the way back in April when she said on a live TikTok she’d be touring New Zealand “next February”? Is there a 108-day break in the middle of Clairo’s Charm Tour to facilitate her bringing her mellow brand of bedroom pop back to outdoor stages Downunder?
All will soon be revealed, but regardless of who we’re flocking to Western Springs to see, Laneway organisers have already nailed one aspect of the festival: pricing transparency.
We might not yet know who our tickets will let us into see but we do know how much we need to budget for them. When tickets go on pre-sale at 10am on Tuesday October 15, eager fans will hand over roughly $202 to secure a pass. On its website,Laneway sets out that first-release tickets cost $189.90 plus an $8 booking fee, a $1 sustainability tax and bank fees of 2.2% ($4.35). Ticket prices raise by $15 for the second and third releases, and a further $10 for a final release, taking that final price tag to the region of $243.
Rumours are swirling that Charli XCX will appear at Laneway Festival 2025. Photo / Getty Images
This upfront spirit around pricing transparency removes much of the guesswork and baseless speculation that has become a fixture of the concert circuit.
“Reckon you need to brace for the price,” I wrote in a group chat the morning tickets for Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism tour went on pre-sale. “I expect it’s going to be $250.” I was over in my estimations by about $50, which made the price tag much easier to swallow, but there were other, less favourable surprises in store.
Originally scheduled to play only one show at Spark Arena in April 2025, friends and I schemed how to ensure we nabbed GA tickets to the Wednesday-night show, only for her to shortly afterwards announce she’d added another show to her Auckland roster, this time on a much more appealing Friday night.
“Due to extraordinary demand for tickets during the pre-sale period, further shows have been announced for all cities - a fourth and final show has just been added in Melbourne, a third show has been confirmed for Sydney and now a second show has been added to the New Zealand tour in Auckland,” the tour promoter said in a statement that was mildly maddening given we’d just forked out four Sir Āpirana Ngatas to stay out past our bedtime on a school night.
Pop star Dua Lipa will play two shows at Auckland's Spark Arena in April 2025. Photo / Live Nation
It was a similar situation in April this year, when SZA returned to perform in Aotearoa for the first time since 2018. Fans, myself included, who’d tracked her star and discography swelling in the intervening six years clambered for tickets to two shows at Spark Arena.
With the rigmarole of the Taylor Swift ticket “lottery” fresh in my mind and the rest of my concert party driving through an area of patchy cellphone reception, I approached the task of securing tickets with the same mindset with which I’d traverse a spell in one of those windswept money booths - just grab whatever you can. $787 later, I’d secured three seated spots up in row EE and began counting down the days until the big night, which fell on a Tuesday. Tuesday was, I justified, at least preferable to the Monday-night alternative date. More fool me. “Due to high demand”, the I Hate U singer added another show to the tour on the Saturday night previous, meaning people who hadn’t hustled to get tickets to the first two dates could now swoop in to see the Grammy Award-winner on a weekend.
Laneway is a surer thing scheduling-wise, too. Organisers have already confirmed Tāmaki Makaurau will open the festivities on Thursday, February 6 (Waitangi Day), and the party then crosses the ditch to Australia, where five further festivals are to take place over two weekends.
In the age of algorithmic pricing, and Fomo-induced scarcity panic, it’s a welcome change to see organisers so clearly setting out what lies ahead financially for punters. Can we talk about getting more shade solutions on those Western Springs outer fields next, please?
