Just a year ago, I stood amongst a crowd of three or four thousand people bundled up in winter jackets, hats, and mittens to watch Noah Kahan perform in Killington, Vermont at the Women’s Alpine Ski World Cup Race where tickets were as low as five dollars. Now, just a few weeks ago, I recruited my dad to go through the dreaded Tickmaster Presale process to secure tickets for one of Kahan’s two concerts at Xcel Energy Center this upcoming June. Unfortunately, tickets this time around were close to 50 times more expensive than when I saw him last year.
Kahan has skyrocketed to mainstream over the last year with his song “Stick Season” first gaining traction on TikTok last summer. He quickly released an album under the same name in Oct. 2022 and has been touring ever since.
Kahan has also caught the attention of other artists; big names in the indie-folk music scene like Hozier and Mt. Joy have graced Kahan’s concert stage and he’s released songs with Post Malone, Zach Bryan, Kacey Musgraves, and Lizzy McAlpine.
“I’m an extremely big Zach Bryan fan, I also love Lizzy McAlpine, so when they did a song together, that’s how I found him,” Emma Smith ‘26, commented. Smith is trying to go to Kahan’s concert next summer, but cited the ticket prices as an obstacle. “I really want to see him. I’m trying to [make it happen] for my sister going to college, we need to go together before she leaves, but tickets are like $300-$400. I’m not totally sure that’s going to work.”
“I’m happy for him, but it’s also kind of sad because he’s not a little underground artist that I found and that I get to listen to that no one else totally knows,” Smith added. “But the fact that he got to collab with so many bigger artists or just kind of the same level as him and then they got bigger together, that’s really cool.”
