Planning a long Lollapalooza weekend? Expect ticket taxes of $91 to $1,001

If you plan to be at Lollapalooza from Megan Thee Stallion to Blink-182, expect taxes to add $91 to the cost of general admission. Get a premium ticket and city, county and state sales and amusement taxes add $1,001 to the cost.

Chicago music fans wanting to see The Killers at Lollapalooza will get a real buzz kill from government: ticket taxes of $91 to $1,001.

Chicago, Cook County and the state all layer taxes on the listed price for a four-day ticket to Lollapalooza 2024. General admission tickets get taxed $91 atop the $409 price for Aug. 1-4 tickets. A platinum pass for the whole event is taxed $1,001 atop the ticket’s $4,500 price.

Even a single-day general admission ticket comes with nearly $35 in taxes.

Taxes turn a four-day, $409 general admission ticket into a $500 ticket. Here’s the tax bill on that ticket: $36.81 for the Chicago amusement tax, $12.27 for the Cook County amusement tax and $41.92 in state and local sales taxes for a total tax bill of $91.

Lollapalooza started in Chicago in 1991 and has generated nearly $2 billion for the city’s economy since 2010, drawing top-tier artists and music fans from around the country to Grant Park. Last year the concert produced $422 million in new local spending.

Under a new agreement, the Chicago Park District also collected more than $85 million from festival revenues, according to the Chicago Tribune. On top of that, the music festival organizer paid $9.6 million in fees to host the festival in Grant Park.

A notable portion of this year’s Lollapalooza revenue will come from the 9% amusement tax Chicago applies to purveyors and consumers of entertainment, including live concerts, theatrical performances and even Netflix subscriptions.

The city collected roughly $258 million from the amusement tax last year, more than any year in the past decade, according to city data.

Chicago’s amusement tax is one of the highest in the country, and the second-highest among the few big cities that charge a similar tax in the Midwest. Indianapolis is highest.

But Chicago taxation doesn’t stop with tickets. Lollapalooza attendees will pay some of the highest hotel and vacation rental taxes in the nation to stay in Chicago.

Concertgoers can expect to pay about $17.39 in taxes per night on every $100 spent on a hotel room and $23.39 extra per $100 per night for a vacation rental.

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot signed off on a 10-year contract with Lollapalooza in July 2022, guaranteeing the music festival will return to Grant Park for 10 summers, with the potential for five more.

City leaders predict the concert deal will be worth about $4 billion in economic impact during the next decade.