Moneybox

Tickets to the Beatles’ First Show in America Were Really Cheap

I’m gonna want more than $30.

Photo by Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images

It will be 50 years ago tomorrow that the Beatles played their first show on U.S. soil at the Washington Coliseum, a now-abandoned hockey arena in what’s currently known as NoMa here in D.C.* Tickets were cheap:

Adjusting for inflation, those tickets ranged in price from $15 to $30. These days $30 will get you in to see St. Vincent at the 9:30 Club but prices to see Kings of Leon at the Verizon Center start at about $60.

*Correction, Feb. 10, 2014: The original version of this post misdated the Beatles concert to Feb. 10, 1964, rather than Feb. 11.