In the past few years, I have spent a good amount of money and time trying to secure tickets for different artists. As time progresses, it seems to get more and more difficult to get ahead in the queue and actually secure a ticket. The ticket buying experience has drastically changed in the last decade. Originally, it had never been easier to purchase tickets for your favorite artist, creator, or athlete. Now, it seems to be working against us.
With the rise of using Ticketmaster as the primary way to get tickets, there has also come an uprising of resellers and bots buying tickets. Bots will swoop in to buy as many tickets as they could so they could resell them for a higher price. Artists have tried to combat this by introducing pre-sale codes. You can sign up to receive a code and if you are randomly chosen anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours before they are scheduled to go on sale, you will receive a password so you can log in to purchase tickets. This is used to try and ensure that real fans get a chance to buy before ticket scalpers can. But, using this method has its own downsides. Pre-sales usually happen during the week and at 10 in the morning. This is an obstacle for those that work a 9-5 job and in some cases, it is the day before pay day, so some can not afford it yet. This might have you thinking “well, if they just need to wait a day then they can just buy during the general sale.” The downside to waiting is that some companies have been known to not hold back any tickets and the show sells out before it can get to the general sale. In other cases, they might let too many people in and even all of the people who do have presale don’t get tickets. Even with presale codes becoming normal, there are still insane resale prices. Olivia Rodrigo, who is currently on her GUTS World Tour, has tried a different tactic. After issuing presale codes to those who were lucky enough, I sadly was not, she closed the option to resell your ticket. While tickets are available for resale on sites like SeatGeek and StubHub, Ticketmaster is not allowing you to resell your ticket until 72 hours before the show starts in that particular city. Although this is a good tactic, sadly there is not a foolproof way to prevent scalpers from snatching tickets from deserving fans.
Another thing that has been stressing out concert-goers is the pricing. We live in a world where it is no longer widely affordable for the average person to easily afford a concert ticket. Aside from the normal inflation affecting prices, dynamic pricing is another factor. Dynamic pricing, also known as surge pricing and demand pricing, is a strategy used by businesses to manipulate prices based on the demand of the product. For instance, a ticket’s original face value might be $120 but if thousands of people try to buy tickets at the same time, then the price will automatically rise to $400. Only when less people are trying to buy will the price go down. This is used to try and ensure that the person who “wants it the most” will end up with the ticket. What actually ends up happening is the person with the most money buys them and those that do not are out of luck. The most known example of this being used is with Uber. When demand for an Uber is high, for example after a concert, a ride that originally might have been $15 could be $80. It all depends on how many people are going after the same thing. This extra money goes to the artists, their team, the venue, and to Ticketmaster itself. While there have been concerns surrounding Ticketmaster and whether they have too much of a monopolistic hold on the ticket selling market, for now they are all that we have.
While receiving a presale code and buying during that window is probably the easiest way to get a decently priced ticket, as I said earlier it is not the most realistic for all. There are workarounds to try and get a ticket for a decent price. While you might be able to get a good price from a second hand seller, there is always the possibility that you can get scammed. Some would rather not take that chance. An option to get tickets for a cheaper price is to wait until the day of the show to buy them. Usually the price will drop the day of the show and will especially drop once the show has officially started. Although this option might make you miss the first few songs, it is a way to save some money. Some fans have even tried going back to the original method of buying and standing in line at the box office the morning of the concert to buy extra tickets at face value. Using this, you might have to wait for a few hours and be willing to hold your place in line. There are also always different giveaways and contests to hand out tickets for different shows. You just need to pay attention to different local stations and businesses.
In the end, Ticketmaster has made the ticket buying process both much easier and simultaneously more difficult. At this point in time, we just have to understand why the things that happen happen and learn to deal with them in a way that can affect you positively. When there is a will there’s a way and when a fan puts their mind to it they will get it.