The reason a comeback is worth more than the original run

They played the same city every summer for a decade and the seats were affordable. Nineteen years after the last show, the reunion sells out in eleven minutes at four times the price, to many of the same people who skipped it in 2004.

What everyone sees

This looks like nostalgia — sentiment inflating what people will pay for a memory. Sentiment is present and insufficient. The material change is that continuous availability removed urgency for a decade, and the interruption converted a recurring option into an event with no assumed next instance.

What is actually happening

Verhallen and Robben examined unavailability directly and found that goods described as temporarily unavailable were evaluated more highly than identical available ones, with the effect depending on whether the unavailability was read as reflecting others’ demand. Sedikides and Wildschut reviewed nostalgia as a motivational state rather than a mood, finding that it strengthens the sense of continuity with one’s earlier self and increases willingness to act on that connection rather than merely to reminisce. The two combine into something a continuous touring schedule cannot produce. Nineteen years supply the continuity motive and remove the assumption of a next opportunity, and the ticket is priced against both.

Why it stays hidden

The pricing hides because the comparison everyone makes is to the last ticket price, adjusted for inflation. That comparison treats the two as the same product. One was an instance of a recurring series and the other is the terminal instance of an interrupted one, and only the second has no assumed sequel.