Concert FOMO has affected many in the past few years with the large number of concerts as well as the easy access to social media.
After a long concert drought due to COVID, concerts are finally picking back up. Especially throughout the past few months, there has been a wide variety of artists touring. Taylor Swift and Beyonce both outsold their respective stadium tours over the summer, causing many fans to empty their bank accounts as well as some less fortunate who are only able to watch the tours through live streams or posts to their friends’ stories. With the mass amounts of concerts and constantly growing fanbases for many artists, it makes the demand for tickets surpasses the amount of tickets available at each show.
I was lucky enough to snag tickets to The Eras Tour after waiting in the online Ticketmaster line for over 4 hours. However, many of my friends were unable to make it through Ticketmaster, let alone even receive a presale code. This is her largest tour to date, not only throughout the country but also across every social media platform.
Swift’s tour has skyrocketed mostly due to her large fan base, but also in part due to social media. She used social media to promote her tour and music, but many of her fans did this as well when posting sounds to use to show off their Eras Tour outfits and what surprise songs they hoped for. When tickets went on sale there was an overwhelming number of people who tried for tickets, because this had been promoted as the event of the year. Fans, and even some nonfans, felt as if they had to be there and take part in the many online trends surrounding this tour specifically, worried they would feel left out otherwise.
Social media constantly being used to post everything about someone’s life has been a known case of “FOMO,” or fear of missing out, for the people who view that as what someone’s daily life looks like. When it comes to concerts, people have taken to posting videos of concerts on their stories, posting about the concert on Instagram, making TikToks of the concert and so much more. Frequent concertgoers showcase the highlights of their concert experiences and tailor them to look the most appealing to their followers. This is when that feeling of FOMO kicks in; seeing others experience what you want to experience especially when that ends up being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity since every show is slightly different as it’s a live performance by a real person.
Though after Taylor Swift, I have been less successful in getting tickets to see artists I’m a fan of. I was able to get a ticket to see Boygenius at one of their re:set concerts; however, I was sad to learn I was unable to attend due to the distance and the date of the concert. I was also unable to get tickets to any of their other shows, or music festivals. For months I’ve seen an abundance of videos of their concerts, I sit in bed scrolling through TikTok after Tiktok, seeing every detail of their show and what I’m missing. This has made me feel like I’m missing out on something special, and I get sad thinking about missing these moments from Boygenius, as well as other artists I have been unable to see when I see others share their own experiences.
Concerts hold a very special place in my heart, I love seeing artists live whose music has helped me and brightened up my life. Seeing others experience these special moments at concerts of the artists performing and interacting with the fans is definitely a cause to making anyone feel like they’re missing out. The increased use of social media has definitely had a large effect on our treatment of concerts, making us feel a need to be at every single one.