Not going out, not staying in: Are in- and out-of-home entertainment sources getting more expensive?

The rising cost of living has made it hard for some consumers to afford their energy bills, mortgages, and other essential costs. But what about the “inessential” costs: things that can take the edge off a rough work week, provide an activity for date nights, and otherwise distract from the everyday drudgery of human existence?

Well, new YouGov data shows that for some consumers, many of those things are getting more expensive too. Across 18 markets, half of the public have noticed a rise in the cost of out-of-home entertainment such as cinema or concerts (48%). With schemes such as “dynamic pricing” attracting controversy from music fans, and with cinema tickets rising in some markets since the pandemic, people may be responding to a genuine phenomenon. In Mexico (63%), India (61%), Poland (60%), Spain (58%), and Italy (58%) as many as three in five consumers say they’ve noticed an increase in prices for this kind of entertainment.

And consumers aren’t having much better luck when they decide to curl up indoors with a movie, a TV show or a video game. On a global level, two in five (41%) say they’ve noticed a rise in the cost of their streaming services – and again, given that Disney Plus, Netflix and other services have increased prices in the last year, it’s none too surprising that they have. This jumps to over half of consumers in Canada (56%), Mexico (54%), and India (58%), and falls to just one in five of respondents based in Hong Kong (22%).

And while Ubisoft, Sony, Xbox, and Take-Two announcing that games would rise to $70 in price, consumers have been less likely to notice increases in the cost of video games. Just one-fifth (22%) say they’ve perceived an increase in the price of games on a global level, though this rises to two in five in Mexico (40%) and India (41%).

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Methodology

YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 500 and 2,000 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in 2022-2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.