Amid Sky-High Concert Tickets, Tribute Bands See Boom

FRISCO, Texas—In 1989, Mike Mroz and Darren Caperna were trying to make it in the Los Angeles music scene. They loved performing and dreamed of being full-time musicians.

There was just one catch.

“We weren’t making any money,” Caperna told The Epoch Times.

So, in 1990, they made a change.

Thirty-six years later, sitting in the green room of a beer garden in Frisco, Texas, with their current band, Back in Black, the performers said they feel blessed to finally be able to make a living as an AC/DC tribute band.

There was a time when tribute bands were considered novelty acts at best. They were musical impersonators, a step above garage bands—talented, but not quite professional. Now, tribute bands are exploding in popularity.

Public relations and entertainment marketing firm AMW reports that live musical entertainment raked in $12.6 billion in the United States in 2025.

The average cost of a concert ticket is $144. Popular artists can get between $300 and $1,000 per ticket. Industry watchers say that because of the high cost, consumers are becoming pickier.

Austin, Texas-based TSE Entertainment reported that many consumers see tribute bands as viable alternatives to the more expensive headliners. Top tribute artists will meticulously research the artists they portray so that their audiences have an experience similar to that of seeing the big name, but without the big price.

TSE predicts that while demand for live music will grow at a rate of between 6 percent and 8 percent over the next seven years, the demand for tribute acts will grow at a rate of 17.5 percent.

“That gap reflects a structural shift in how fans are consuming live music: seeking the emotional experience of a great show without the premium price tag of a superstar tour,” TSE’s website reads.

Tribute artists who spoke with The Epoch Times said they are ready to meet that demand.

Sporting a red western skirt accented with silver bling, with matching boots and cowboy hat, Rhonda Medina carries herself with the same sass, swagger, and charisma as Patsy Cline.

The legendary country and western songstress was at the peak of her career when she was killed in a plane crash in 1963 at age 30.

Medina has been bringing Cline back to life for audiences large and small for the past 15 years, including a midwinter performance for 80 residents of an assisted living facility in Flower Mound, Texas.

In between songs, Medina, as Cline, shares stories, jokes, and anecdotes from the life of the singer.

Medina remains in character until the last resident has left the room and the sound equipment is packed.

Medina stresses that she is not a musician; she is a celebrity impersonator. She said she moved to Texas in a bid to get out of show business. Acting wasn’t paying the bills, so she decided to find a day job. Then one day, an agent called her and asked if she could sing like Marilyn Monroe.

She said that initial gig turned into other gigs, and now she regularly portrays a slate of about 15 celebrities. It wasn’t her goal, but it is a paying job.

“No one starts out to be a tribute artist,” Medina told The Epoch Times.

Cathy Wilson caught the show with her friends. Wilson said Medina is keeping an important era of the ever-changing country music genre alive by performing classic songs that get precious little airplay these days.

“She sang Patsy Cline’s ‘Crazy.’ That was my mother’s favorite song. It almost made me cry,” Wilson told The Epoch Times.

About 450 miles north of Flower Mound, Clint Nievar and Justin Sassanella prepare to portray the fictional musical duo “Joliet” Jake and Elwood Blues, the Blues Brothers. The characters, developed by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, debuted on “Saturday Night Live” in April 1978 before becoming the titular characters in the 1980 film.

Sassanella and Nievar said they feel a responsibility to portray the characters as Aykroyd and Belushi did.

The duo said that the Blues Brothers did more than provide comic entertainment through frenetic dance steps, raw vocals, and scorching harmonica solos. They highlighted musical pioneers such as Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, Ray Charles, and Cab Calloway.

“John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, being comedians [who] … respected the craft of the blues, wanted to take these songs and artists that had kind of fallen by the wayside in the culture,” Nievar said. “They wanted to bring back actual musicians. And they were successful.”

Their Legends in Concert castmate, Ryan Pelton, feels a similar responsibility to uphold tradition and cultivate a new audience.

As Elvis Presley, Pelton has found the Memphis rocker to be a complex artist with a dedicated fanbase. He makes it a point to be as honest in his portrayal as he can.

As Pelton sauntered onto the stage in Branson, Missouri, in a white jumpsuit reminiscent of Elvis’s 1968 comeback, a new audience greeted him with shrieks and cheers much like the teens from the 1950s. One of them screamed, “I love you!”

Pelton paused for a moment, then answered in the velvety smooth tones of the King of Rock and Roll.

“I love you, too,” he said with Elvis’s mischievous smile. “I’m just not ready for a relationship.”

The ad hoc Elvis fan club that night was made up of teens on a school trip from Jonesboro, Arkansas. The young fans were born more than 30 years after Presley died, but they had seen the 2022 film “Elvis” and fallen in love with his work.

“I really liked [Pelton’s] energy, and I like the way he sings,” 14-year-old Sophie McDermott told The Epoch Times. “I don’t know what it is about it. Just like how he performs and all that. It’s just like the whole of him. I love it so much.”

Cindy Brown came to Branson from Indiana on vacation with her granddaughters. She said the tribute performers prompted happy memories, especially the Blues Brothers, whom she remembered from “Saturday Night Live.”

“They were just really entertaining. They were a lot of fun. Reminded me a lot of the real [characters],” she told The Epoch Times.

On its website, TSE reports that the 35- to 65-year-old demographic makes up the bulk of most tribute artists’ audience. Digital marketing agency Amra and Elma states on its website that this is also the demographic most responsive to nostalgic appeal.

Audience reaction to Back in Black seems, at least anecdotally, to bear this out.

It’s a cool March evening, and the mostly middle-class, mostly middle-aged audience has been singing along to their favorite AC/DC songs in the beer garden in Frisco. The band is wrapping up its show. The opening notes of the title track from AC/DC’s 1981 album, “For Those About to Rock,” immediately gets the audience’s attention.

As the tempo builds, and Caperna, portraying Brian Johnson, lets loose with Johnson’s growling roar of “Yeah!” the audience rises almost as one.

In that moment, a keen observer can almost spot the transformation. To the casual onlooker, it’s a gathering of suburban couples having a good time.

But those who are about to rock know that in their hearts, they are 17 again. It is the spring of 1982, and they are standing around a bonfire, or at a house party, or sitting on the hood of a 1973 Camaro watching their friends cruise the main drag in their hometown. The car’s doors are open, and AC/DC is blasting from the cassette deck’s speakers.

They are young and wild, and, for the duration of that song, they have no real cares.

Tomorrow, they will go back to being business owners, welders, insurance adjusters, and secretaries. This night, they are back to being among those about to rock, and they will return Caperna and Johnson’s salute as enthusiastically as they responded to AC/DC 40 years ago.

It is their tribute to the band that gave them a taste of their youth.