Ticket price-band methodology

Status and interpretation

Live Index Performance Estimate — not reported box office. This version 1.0.0 protocol defines what Live Index will accept before publishing an estimate; it is not a claim that observations have already been collected or that the protocol has been validated against actual settlements. No estimate rows are released with this document. A method can establish a reproducible decision rule without establishing any particular show’s attendance, gross, sellout status or promoter profit.

Observation scope

A price-band observation belongs to one performance, sales phase, ticket type and timestamp. Record the primary source, currency, seat or section category, access condition and whether mandatory charges are included. Distinguish ordinary primary inventory, market-priced primary inventory, VIP packages and resale. An artist’s advertised from-price is a minimum offer, not a typical paid price or an attendance-weighted average for the event.

Summary statistics

• Minimum and maximum are the lowest and highest observed eligible prices in the captured inventory, not historical extremes for tickets that are no longer offered.
• A modal price requires a declared frequency basis, such as observed ticket quantities or observed price labels. If quantities are missing, do not call a frequently repeated section label the event’s most commonly paid price.
• A median needs a specified population and weighting. A median of displayed section prices is different from a median across available tickets and from a median across sold tickets.
• Average paid ticket price requires transaction or reported gross-and-paid-attendance evidence with matching scope. Do not replace it with the midpoint of a visible minimum and maximum.

Fees and packages

Preserve the displayed all-in and face-value fields when both are available. If mandatory charges cannot be separated, describe the observed total rather than guessing the fee share. A VIP package may bundle services beyond admission; the package price cannot automatically enter a ticket-only gross calculation. Taxes, optional insurance and delivery choices have different scope. The federal fee rule governs display requirements; it does not reveal the private allocation of revenue among parties.

Change and uncertainty

When prices change, create a new observation with its timestamp and sales phase. Do not interpolate unseen historical prices between snapshots or assume unsold inventory transacted at a displayed offer. Bands can describe what a buyer was offered, not what every buyer paid. To estimate gross, reconcile sold quantities with applicable prices and disclose remaining uncertainty. Without quantities, capacity multiplied by a maximum or median offer is not a report of receipts. Retain failed captures as limitations, never substitute zero for a missing price.

Release gate

Publication requires a dated primary ticket-inventory observation, a venue configuration source, primary price-band evidence, promoter and ticketing evidence, a confidence classification and a record-specific limitations statement. A later reading is a new observation, not an overwrite of the previous state. The pilot remains withheld from search and the sitemap until ten observations individually pass these requirements. Downloads are offered only for real released rows, never for an empty demonstration or synthetic sample. Inventory protocol, capacity protocol and price-band protocol describe different inputs; none substitutes for the others.