In the world of streaming services, many people connect with music to represent their emotions and life moments. The increased accessibility of music on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, compared to CDs and Walkmans, has bred a new generation of fans who would love nothing more than seeing their favorite artists live.
The bane of every music lover’s existence, however, is Ticketmaster. The ticket-selling site is known for crashing and burning concertgoers’ dreams via insane queuing systems, scalpers, and dynamic pricing, which has once again become a hot topic in 2026. As artists continue to announce tours, fans have little time to prepare themselves for what is commonly called “The Ticketmaster War”, a term no longer reserved for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, now being thrown around at every major sale due to the increased inaccessibility of affordable concert tickets. A shift from code-required presales to account-associated presales has converted a once-coveted queue into a battleground. This article will examine two recent presales and fan frustrations surrounding them.
Exhibit A: Harry Styles
If you haven’t heard of Harry Styles, you have to have been living under a rock since 2010. A former member of One Direction, Styles’ career has skyrocketed. After a hiatus following his years-long Love on Tour, he is back for the Together Together tour following the upcoming release of his newest work, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. His fifteen-show residency during Love on Tour at Madison Square Garden earned him a banner hanging in the rafters, and he is back to do it again for thirty performances. Unfortunately for American Harries, these are the only American dates announced at this time. A big trend during Styles’ last residency was that fans would try to attend as many shows as possible, with some fans attending over two-thirds of his shows at the Garden. This, combined with resale ticket prices due to scalpers, which can be defined as bots that purchase tickets during presale with the intent to resell them at significantly higher rates, has made concerts feel inaccessible. Combine this with the need to travel and pay for lodging for fans who live outside of the tri-state area, and you have successfully generated a disgruntled fanbase.
For this tour’s presale, users were allowed to select five dates, and the presale would occur over multiple weeks to account for the number of shows, with a few dates happening every few days until all shows had had their moment to disappoint fans. Some fans reported 160,000 people joining the queue for one of the MSG shows, for a venue with a capacity of just under 20,000 people. It can be especially frustrating to see some fans securing tickets to multiple nights due to their luck in the queue. Fans are thoroughly frustrated by the time general sale rolls around, wondering what could possibly be left after an artist presale with large queues and an AMEX presale specifically for cardholders.
A unique note on this presale is that Harry Styles used platinum tickets to mimic the effects of dynamic pricing, which is a tactic on Ticketmaster, where, as the demand for tickets exceeds the number of tickets available, the prices for the remaining tickets increase. This creates an interesting phenomenon, where two concertgoers could be sitting in the same row, but one person paid significantly more than the other person, even if both attendees purchased their tickets during the artist presale. When fans discovered the varying rates for tickets, as well as the general rates set for zones, there was plenty of internet outrage. Some of the seated tickets were listed for $884, with official platinum tickets being over $1,000. However, by purchasing these outrageously priced tickets, we as a fan base have set the standard that we as a collective are willing to pay whatever it takes for live music, which increases the inaccessibility of these events for the average fan.
Exhibit B: Noah Kahan
Famous for his New England charm and skilled songwriting, Noah Kahan is preparing to tour his upcoming album, The Great Divide, this summer. For anyone unfamiliar, Kahan has been releasing music since 2017, but became more mainstream following the release of Stick Season, his third album. This summer’s tour is an upgrade from arenas to baseball stadiums, increasing capacity in almost all cities he will visit. Notably, Kahan will revisit Fenway Park in Boston, MA, where he performed two sold-out shows on his last tour.
Something notable, however, about the pre-presale process for this tour is that users could select dates that they would like access to the presale of, and Kahan specified that tickets were nontransferable and could not be resold above face value. He also turned off dynamic pricing. This is huge for fans because it prevents scalpers from trying to make a profit by buying up tickets during presale. Presale for all tour dates occurred at noon local time on February 10th. When users logged into Ticketmaster to join the queue, they were greeted with a message stating the range of ticket prices from $73.30 to $492.88, excluding the exclusive Front Porch tickets, which are $100 pit tickets only accessible to lucky fans sent a code the night before. This was comforting to fans who overlap between Noah Kahan and Harry Styles, who are in desperate need of transparency from their favorite artists.
Unfortunately for fans, these tickets found themselves extremely inaccessible, despite Kahan’s efforts to deter scalpers. Reports of over 185,000 users joining the queue for Citi Field, which has a capacity of 42,000, disappointed fans. Seven additional shows were added to the tour following the start of presale, including one additional night at Citi Field and two additional nights at Fenway Park. These additional dates helped some fans, but others still ended the day disappointed and wishing for the days when presales felt a bit more limited and less like a general sale.
So, how do I win the Ticketmaster War?
Concert culture and the increasingly stressful ticket purchasing practices can be overwhelming. This article may have been bleak, but it is not impossible to see your favorite artists live. If you’re planning to attend with a group of friends, have as many people as possible sign up for presale – whoever has the highest spot in the queue can buy for the entire group. Make sure you make your activity as un-bot-like as possible: log into your account on one device and join the queue on one tab. If you go to Stevens, maybe your dream concert will be a part of the Entertainment Committee’s Off-Campus lineup, and you can brave a different lottery system to try and secure affordable tickets. If all else fails, you might find reasonably priced resale tickets on sites like SeatGeek and GameTime. Here’s to seeing a low number next time you join a Ticketmaster queue!