Ticket KPIs · Ticket resale glossary
Resale Price Percentiles
Also known as: Resale price range, P25 P50 P75 P90, Price percentiles
Resale price percentiles describe the spread of prices resale tickets sold for: a quarter sold below the 25th percentile, half below the median, three quarters below the 75th and one in ten above the 90th.
They give a fuller picture than one average. The gap between the 25th and 75th percentile shows how wide the market is; a high 90th percentile shows how much premium seats fetch.
Per venue, they're a quick way to price tickets for a new event before it has any sales of its own. See also median ticket price and ticket price distribution.
How resale price percentiles are calculated
Sort every resale sale price in the period from lowest to highest. The k-th percentile is the price at or below which k% of sales fall. A common method (nearest rank): position = k ÷ 100 × n, rounded up, where n is the number of sales; the percentile is the price at that position. The 50th percentile is the median.
Percentiles can be computed per event, per section or per venue. At venue level they pool all resale sales over a period, such as the last 12 months, across every event, so they describe the venue's typical resale pricing rather than one show's.
Worked example: 20 resale sales
A venue had 20 resale sales last month. Sorted, the prices were £35, £40, £42, £45, £48, £50, £55, £58, £60, £62, £65, £70, £75, £80, £90, £95, £110, £140, £190 and £320.
With the nearest-rank method, P25 is the 5th price (£48), the median is the 10th (£62), P75 is the 15th (£90) and P90 is the 18th (£140). A quarter of tickets sold for £48 or less, half for £62 or less, and only two sales — one in ten — went above £140. Methods that interpolate between neighbours give slightly different values; the median here would be £63.50.
How to read the spread of resale prices
Each percentile answers a different question. For the full shape behind the numbers, look at the ticket price distribution.
- P25 to P75 (the interquartile range): the middle half of the market, £48 to £90 in the example. A narrow range means buyers agree on price; a wide one means the market is split by section or by event.
- P25: a realistic floor for typical seats, usually a little above the get-in price, which is a single cheapest ticket.
- Median: the typical sale and the best single anchor for pricing an ordinary seat.
- P90: what premium seats fetch. A P90 several times the median signals a strong market for front sections.
Using venue percentiles to price a new event
A newly announced event has no resale history. The venue's percentiles give a starting point: if a typical show there resells between £48 and £90 with a median of £62, a ticket bought at £55 face value has limited room unless the act is bigger than the venue's usual line-up. Adjust up or down using what you know about the act's event demand, then switch to event-level data once sales start.
Pitfalls with price percentiles
Percentiles are only as good as the sales behind them:
- Mixed events: venue percentiles blend every genre and act, and a sports team and a touring pop act at the same arena have different markets.
- Fees: percentiles of prices with fees aren't comparable with percentiles of prices without them.
- Few sales: with only 20 or so sales, P90 rests on one or two transactions.
- Listings are not sales: percentiles of asking prices sit higher than what buyers actually pay.
Track it with Eventory
Venue pages on Eventory show the 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentile resale prices over the last 12 months, and the median price per top section.
Frequently asked questions
What does P90 mean in ticket prices?
P90 is the 90th percentile: 90% of resale tickets sold for that price or less, and one in ten sold for more. It shows what the most expensive seats typically fetch without being skewed by a single extreme sale.
How are price percentiles calculated?
Sort all sale prices from lowest to highest and take the price at the matching position. For 200 sales, the 25th percentile is the 50th price, the median the 100th and the 90th percentile the 180th.
Why use percentiles instead of the average price?
Percentiles show the spread of prices, not just the middle. Two venues can share the same average while one has tightly clustered prices and the other a large premium tail. Four percentiles make that difference visible.
Where can I see resale price percentiles for a venue?
Eventory venue pages show the 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentile resale prices over the last 12 months, together with the median price in the venue's top sections.