I think I speak for the majority of people when I say that buying concert tickets has gotten extremely difficult, stressful, and expensive over the past few years. I absolutely love music, and there is nothing better than going to a concert of one of your favorite artists with your friends and listening to songs you’ve dreamed about hearing live. But since 2023, I have had an extremely difficult time getting concert tickets to artists that I absolutely love. Whether that be because of Ticketmaster glitches, a high demand for tickets, or exorbitantly high prices, the overall process of getting concert tickets has become a highly unenjoyable experience. After losing multiple Ticketmaster wars, when I found out that one of my absolute favorite artists, Conan Gray, was going on tour, I was prepared to do absolutely anything to get a ticket to the Wishbone World Tour. I was so stressed leading up to the presale on October 23rd, but I was pleasantly surprised as it ended up being one of the easiest processes ever!
Conan Gray is known for being an extremely talented musician who also uses his social platform for good. He performed at the Global Citizens Festival in 2023, participated in a campaign by Comic Relief U.S, and is an advocate for mental health awareness and social justice, among other things. He grew up living a humble life in Texas and is truly a self-made artist who started his career by posting on YouTube in 2013. His channel “ConanxCanon” included vlogs and covers of his favorite songs until he finally started posting his own music, which caught the attention of a record company in 2018.
I truly believe that self-made artists understand the value of money and how the average person cannot afford to go to a concert with the current prices. The ticket, concert merchandise, your outfit, concessions purchased, and transportation truly do add up, but concerts should be an accessible social experience for all. It seems as though concert ticket prices have been rising significantly over time, especially since many scalpers buy tickets during artist presales and then resell them for way more than face value, turning $75 tickets into $300. While Conan Gray hasn’t, to my knowledge, spoken publicly about ticket accessibility, I could definitely sense that he is aware of this issue and has put some protocols in place to make the process of getting tickets for his Wishbone World Tour much more accessible. Though he may be considered less popular compared to other artists currently on tour, he has previously sold out arenas such as Madison Square Garden, the Kia Forum, and Wembley Arena.
The presale process was super simple since you were allowed to sign up for presale for multiple shows in different cities. While I only signed up for the concert closest to me, I could have signed up for more, which is very helpful and increases your chances of purchasing tickets. Additionally, once you signed up for presale, it linked directly to the Ticketmaster account that you signed up with, rather than sending you a code. This step is truly what made the difference, considering you could only purchase tickets under presale with an account that was registered for presale. This prevented scalpers from using their many accounts and inputting the code that they technically didn’t register for. Lastly, during presale, there was limited access to the venue, meaning that some seats in the upper sections were not available for purchase because those were for the general sale, which was the day after. This makes things much more inclusive for fans who may have missed the presale sign-up because they still got the chance to purchase tickets.
My sister and I were both able to sign up for presale, with me joining the ticket “waiting room” around 8:20 a.m. and my sister joining a bit later at 8:50 a.m., since tickets went on sale starting at nine a.m. We were both super nervous, but had high hopes, and we’re prepared to do anything to secure these tickets. Finally, at nine a.m., we were both put into the queue, and my sister had around 2,000 people ahead of her, while I was right behind her with about 3,000 ahead of me. We were both shocked at how close we were because in the past, there had been up to 20,000 people ahead of us in the queue. After about 10 minutes, my sister got out of the queue and was able to get two floor tickets pretty close to the stage for around 300 dollars total, which is extremely fair for ticket pricing, especially on the floor level. We were absolutely thrilled, as we have been huge Conan Gray fans for a long time, and are finally going to see him in February!
Overall, I think that when an artist is aware that concert tickets are not accessible to all of their fans, it truly does make a difference in the process of purchasing the tickets. Part of the reason I love Conan Gray so much is that he and his music are very relatable, so I hope he knows how much his fans appreciate his generosity in making his concerts more of an accessible experience. I am extremely grateful that getting tickets this time around was a smooth and easy process, and that the prices were extremely reasonable. While I followed Conan Gray’s message in his album“Wishbone” to wish on stars, clovers, and lucky numbers for your wishes to come true, luckily, I got the larger half of the wishbone, and scored tickets to the concert of one of my all-time favorite artists!