How long should ringing in my ears last after a concert?

It usually fades within a day or two. Ringing that lasts longer than a few days, or keeps coming back, is worth seeing your GP about.

Does ringing after a gig mean I have damaged my hearing?

It means your ears have been overloaded. A single night often recovers, but each episode adds up, and repeated exposure is how permanent tinnitus and hearing loss develop.

Can ear plugs prevent it?

Yes. Lowering the level reaching your ears is the only thing that prevents it. Filtered plugs do that without making the music sound muffled.

Why your ears ring after a gig, and what it means

You get home from a gig, the house is quiet, and there is a high pitched hiss or ring that was not there this morning. It is so common that most people treat it as part of the night out. It is not. It is your ears telling you they were overloaded.

What is actually happening

Sound is picked up by thousands of tiny hair cells inside the cochlea, deep in your inner ear. Loud noise overworks them. After a very loud night they are swollen and exhausted, and they misfire, which your brain hears as ringing or hissing.

Hearing also feels dulled, as if your ears are full of cotton wool. Audiologists call this a temporary threshold shift. Over a day or two the cells usually recover and the ringing fades.

Why it matters even when it fades

The recovery is real, but it is not complete. Each episode can leave a few hair cells damaged, and those do not grow back. The effect is cumulative: a musician or a regular gig goer who has had hundreds of these nights is far more likely to end up with permanent tinnitus, the ringing that never goes away, and with noise induced hearing loss.

The first thing people usually lose is not volume but clarity: following one voice in a noisy pub becomes hard, long before anything sounds quiet.

Ringing that lasts more than a few days, or that keeps returning, is worth a visit to your GP. The NHS page on tinnitus (opens in a new tab) sets out what help is available.

Why gigs do it so easily

Amplified music at a concert, club or festival can reach 130dB, according to Auritech, and hearing damage can start at 85dB. Because the decibel scale is logarithmic, 130dB is not a bit louder than 85dB, it is thousands of times the sound energy. At those levels the safe listening time is measured in minutes, not hours. See how loud is too loud for what that means for different levels.

How to stop it happening

Standing further from the speakers and stepping outside between sets both help, but the only reliable answer is to lower what reaches your ears.

Foam plugs do that, which is why so many people try them once. The problem is that foam cuts the high frequencies far more than the low ones: the bass still thumps, the vocals and cymbals disappear, and the gig sounds like it is happening next door. Most people take them out after a song.

A filtered plug, such as the Auritech Music, uses a ceramic filter to bring the whole range down more evenly. The mix stays balanced, you can still talk to the person next to you, and the plugs stay in. That last part is what actually protects your hearing.

Why do my ears ring after a gig?