Nothing compares to the joy of seeing your favourite music artist announce a world tour, until that feeling quickly turns to dread when you remember it means you’ll have to go head-to-head with your worst enemy, Ticketmaster. Now it’s important to note, you are not alone! Don’t think you have personally failed, as the system seems designed to make most people lose. Chalking it up to simply being unlucky or slow is not the mindset you should have, instead blame the unfair ticketing system which has recently gotten a lot worse.
I have perfected my battle strategy over the years. I log onto my account extra early and join the waiting room the second it opens. I blare the artist’s music in the background, I repeat positive affirmations and if I’m really desperate, I’ll get out the manifestation crystals. Ticketmaster claims that their tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis, yet I follow the same ritual every time and end up either 700th in the queue or 70,000th. Which makes me question if this first-come, first-served system is accurate at all.
But on those lucky days when I do win the queue war? I am immediately met with an even worst obstacle, the ticket prices. Suddenly the ticket that was originally £60 is now practically the price of my car. I start contemplating whether the concert is worth the huge chunk of my student loan. Ticketmaster introduced their ‘dynamic pricing’ strategy which supposedly ensures artists receive more money and to stop touts from reselling tickets. They adjust prices according to their demand, reaching ridiculous amounts. That said, I am a victim of buying outrageously overpriced concert tickets. For a general standing ticket to see Oasis, I paid over £350, while my friend, who bought during presale, got the exact same ticket for around £80. Same floor, same view, yet her bank account wasn’t destroyed in the process. This concert in particular sparked huge debate around Ticketmaster’s pricing system which led Oasis to publicly announce that dynamic pricing would not be used for their North America Tour. Although this dynamic pricing is advertised to protect us from bots, it feels more like exploitation.
Not only have ticket prices risen dramatically but the type of ticket you can purchase has also changed. Tickets labelled as ‘Platinum’ and ‘VIP’ now seem like the new standard, even though these appear to be the same regular tickets we could buy before, just triple the price. It’s disappointing to see that gig culture has somewhat mirrored economic inequality, with most tickets nowadays being too unaffordable for most fans.
Then came the code system. Sign up, hope, and wait to see whether you have been chosen, as if we are tributes in The Hunger Games. This new development was created as anti-bot protection, which in all fairness, probably has helped, however I would argue that this system is completely unfair. Codes were used for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and caused absolute chaos after many devoted fans who didn’t receive a code, myself included, didn’t even have an opportunity to fight for tickets. How can we even lose the Ticketmaster war if we weren’t allowed on the battlefield? I was fortunate enough to get a ticket from a friend who did receive a code, but I was one of few, and many fans were left devastated.
So why do we keep losing the Ticketmaster war? Well, I would argue it is little to do with our own tactics and a lot to do with the madness that is the Ticketmaster system. It’s not that we are bad at buying tickets, it’s that Ticketmaster is terrible at letting us buy them. Maybe one day, they will realise that tickets shouldn’t be reserved for the luckiest and wealthiest, but for the people who love the music the most. Maybe then, war will be over.