When consumers think of Holiday gift spending, they might think of traditionally common purchases for family members and friends: apparel, toys, home goods, technology, etc. While most of these categories for purchases remained incredibly relevant and profitable for companies during the 2025 holiday season, two categories soared to high levels of profitability: experiences and entertainment. According to Klarna, experiences and entertainment spending saw increases of 115% and 130% respectively this holiday season.
Inflation concerns presented challenges for consumers in 2025. According to ICSC’s holiday shopping data for the 2025 holiday season, value was the most important factor for around three-quarters of consumers in deciding where to purchase gifts, and the percentage of consumers shopping to find promotions increased again from 39% in 2024 to 42% in 2025. Consumers felt pressure to make wise purchases during this holiday season—yet, they spent a record amount on experiences and entertainment, both of which have been notably difficult to afford in recent years.
Experience spending often includes spending on tickets to performances: movies, theater, concerts, comedy, etc. Increased facility costs, labor costs, and attendance lulls have only driven up the cost of movie tickets. Tickets, especially for Broadway shows, have increased in price due to demand for popular shows and celebrities. Concert tickets have reportedly dropped in price from 2024, but only slightly, and concert prices peaked in 2024 at a level many fans couldn’t agree with. Comedy shows largely haven’t gotten any cheaper because of high costs due to inflation, venues, and popular comedians. All of these trends seem to suggest that consumers would be unlikely to invest in experiences due to the continued high costs. Why consumers spent more on experiences this holiday season remains a mystery, but the trends discussed above concern large, nationally or internationally popular performances—the same might not be true for more local acts or talents due to the particular benefits or challenges expected in a local environment. Perhaps consumers spent more on local or smaller performances, a decision that may help to stimulate local arts and prevent the complete domination of media giants.
Entertainment spending often aligns with consumer spending on technology. According to Adobe, video games and video game devices drove a significant amount of entertainment sales this holiday season, particularly from the Nintendo Switch 2, the PlayStation 5, and the Xbox Series X. Nintendo released the Switch 2 in June of 2025, so the pricing for that device remained high by the holiday season. However, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X were released in previous years, so the consumer might expect that their price decreased, right? Wrong. Both devices sold for higher prices on average this holiday season than in 2024. Just like experience spending, consumer spending on entertainment technologies doesn’t seem to make sense: why would consumers spend more on these industries when costs have only gone up?
Perhaps the key to the puzzle lies in Adobe’s 2025 holiday shopping data, which finds that consumers did most of their shopping during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when online deals proved to be the most promising for most products. Companies will soon catch on to shoppers’ online sales preference (if they haven’t already) and look to increase prices so as to make up for lost profit caused by inflation and other factors. Consumers should brace themselves for greater costs for the next holiday season, and write to Santa sooner rather than later.
Charlie Burns is the Editorials Editor. His Email is Cburns1@fandm.edu.