How Many Days’ Rent Will a Beyonce Show Cost Fans Across the Country?

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Looking to gauge the financial health of the country? Well, pick your index: There’s the Dow Jones, of course, and Standard and Poor’s MidCap 400, as well as the Nasdaq composite. To these fine and closely scrutinized financial institutions, we’d like to add one more:

The Beyoncé Index.

Queen Bey long ago transcended plebeian definitions of “singer,” or “entertainer,” or even “goddess.” No, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter is a full-fledged industry unto itself, generating millions (billions?) in music, merchandising, and concert ticket sales.

Surfing a wave of publicity since her Super Bowl appearance, the surprise releases of the strikingly political single “Formation” and the infidelity-rumor-stoking album “Lemonade” (650,000 copies sold the first week it dropped, in April), Beyoncé has had fans across the nation falling right in line for her Formation tour.

The tour, which has about two dozen U.S. dates, kicked off in the spring in Miami and wraps up in October in Nashville, TN. This is no ordinary concert. To devoted members of the Beyhive, it’s an event, a lifestyle choice, and a major financial investment.

One superfan almost lost the roof over her head when Beyoncé rolled into Houston. College student Chyna Johnson went viral—and was almost evicted—after she tweeted she had blown her rent money on Formation tickets, according to Metro. The 22-year-old was eventually able to work it out with her landlord.

That got us here at realtor.com® wondering just how much money fans across the nation are really paying to see the Grammy winner up close—and how many days of rent those tickets were costing them.

Our data team picked 11 big cities across the nation that are on the tour and looked at median sold ticket prices from eBay—which indicate how much people in each sold-out market are willing to shell out to see their idol, above and beyond the “official price.” We then correlated that info to the median county rents for each stop on the tour. The rents came from the most recent U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data.

So where did fans sacrifice the most days of rent to see Beyoncé in the flesh?

Those living in the Midwestern metropolis of St. Louis forked over the most days of rent to sing along in real time to hits like “Crazy in Love” or “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” Residents of the Gateway City paid a median $172 for a ticket, which equals about 5.44 days of rent. And those weren’t even the VIP seats.

Here’s the tally:

1. St. Louis, MO, at 5.44 days of rent

2. Atlanta, GA, at 5.43 days of rent

3. Detroit, MI, at 4.09 days of rent

4. Chicago, IL, at 3.98 days of rent

5. Queens, NY, (New York City) at 3.66 days of rent

6. Los Angeles, CA, at 3.54 days of rent

7. Dallas, TX, at 2.67 days of rent (tied with Miami)

7. Miami, FL, at 2.67 days of rent (tied with Dallas)

9. Santa Clara, CA, (San Francisco) at 2.23 days of rent

10. Minneapolis, MN, at 1.85 days of rent

11. Seattle, WA, at 1.58 days of rent

As for which city came out on top in terms of pure dollars-and-cents Beyoncé devotion: New York City, of course. Fans in the Big Apple ponied up the most dough to see the superstar live, at about $228 per ticket. That’s not exactly a shocker—New Yorkers are used to paying more for just about everything.

But because one of those things is rent, devotees paid a smaller proportion of their living costs on tickets: about 3.66 days of rent.

Although Beyoncé isn’t from New York City, she and her Brooklyn-born hubby, Jay Z, have a home there. That makes her practically a hometown girl.

“They have a rabid fan base [here],” says Manhattan-based real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuels.

But maybe “it would be more productive to wait in line for 3.66 days to buy tickets and save the money in the rent,” he jokes.

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