Still thinking of going to the Super Bowl? 'It's doable, but it's expensive.'

A trip to the Twin Cities for this weekend's Super Bowl will cost you.

Ticket prices to this year's Super Bowl are running on the pricey side compared with past years, said John Lamoreaux, president of Ticket King, a ticket brokerage.

It has an office a block away from US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, where the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles will play in the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Why not grab a few buddies and head over to the party?

"It's doable, but it's expensive," Lamoreaux said. "Absolutely there are tickets available."

Upper-level end zone seats are going for $4,000, he said. Lower level seats are starting at $4,750.

"These prices are, by Super Bowl standards, considered high, which is kind of counterintuitive, given that Minneapolis is a cold-weather city where typically the Super Bowl is held in places like Arizona and Florida — more of a vacation destination," Lamoreaux said.

This time last year, upper level seats were selling for around $2,000. "So, we're double that," Lamoreaux said.

It's a case of supply and demand.

"From a capacity standpoint, this is a smaller stadium," he said. The capacity of US Bank Stadium is officially listed at 66,200.

Compare that with NRG Stadium in Houston, where the Super Bowl was played last year. It holds about 71,000. Lambeau Field in Green Bay, by comparison, has a maximum capacity of 81,441.

"The primary driver of the price is the fact that this is a smaller stadium," Lamoreaux said. "There's a supply issue, and when there's a supply issue the destination is less important and the teams that are in it are less important as far as what drives the price."

Typically, the average Super Bowl ticket costs $2,500 to $3,000, according to SeatGeek.com, "but that price varies depending on the particular matchup and when the tickets are purchased."

The website's real-time ticket price tracker put the price of Super Bowl tickets at $4,903 on Wednesday afternoon.

This time last year, tickets to Super Bowl LI averaged a little over $4,000 for the Patriots vs. the Atlanta Falcons, SeatGeek says.

In 2011, the Green Bay Packers faced the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV.  Tickets sold for an average of $3,561, considered somewhat pricey at the time.

But that game was played at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, and total attendance was 103,219, according to the NFL.

That price was commanded "largely due to the matchup between the Packers and the Steelers," according to SeatGeek.

By 2014, when the Denver Broncos played the Seattle Seahawks at Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford, the price had fallen to $2,536, according to SeatGeek.

Meanwhile, history has shown that the ticket prices tend to fall as game time approaches, according to SeatGeek. It's unknown whether that will happen again this year.

Ticket prices have fluctuated quite a bit since Jan. 1, according to an analysis by Vivid Seats, a Chicago-based online ticket marketplace. Prices spiked when the AFC and NFC championship games were played Jan. 21, but came down slightly after that, according to the Vivid Seats analysis.

If you want to experience the spectacle of the event and not worry about seeing the game live, there are plenty of free or low-cost activities near the stadium and in the Twin Cities metro area.

In the end, the ticket price situation for this year's game could have been worse.

"What would these prices be had the Vikings made it?" Lamoreaux said. "That's anybody's guess. It's a market-driven business."