If you have attempted to buy concert tickets within the past few years for any semi-popular artist, then you are well aware of how difficult it has become to obtain those. With online queues and skyrocketing prices, buying concert tickets has become an extreme inconvenience.
Let’s start with the price. Sometimes, the exorbitant ticket prices are not the fault of the artist. It often comes at the hands of resellers looking to make money off desperate fans. Tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour shows were not cheap by any means, not even in the nosebleeds. But some fans paid just under $100,000 to see her perform live. Presale codes given to those with intentions to resell are a dangerous weapon. But again, the artists are not responsible for the prices resellers set. Even though these tickets prices were outrageously high, Taylor has ten albums. She performed 44 songs at every concert and was on stage for over three hours each time. She put on a good show for her fans and though I personally would never pay that much to see any artist, she did her best to make the money her fan’s spent worth it.
In a completely opposite situation, Olivia Rodrigo recently announced her second tour following the drop of her sophomore album, “GUTS”. While she is a good performer and her fan base is strong, she does not produce the same visually appealing and extravagant shows some other big-name artists do. The average stage time for her 2022 tour was an hour and a half. Fans were shocked when presale ticket prices were revealed, and the cheapest seats were already in the two and three hundred price range. Olivia only has two albums she can perform with a few covers to be mixed in. She definitely will not be performing for three hours, so fans have been left wondering where these crazy prices are coming from.
Another part of the process of getting tickets and eventually attending concerts is the waiting. People have waited hours and hours in queues online to get tickets to see their favorite artists. Fans have also waited outside venues in tents and chairs in order to get a spot at the front of the stage. Though camping outside venues is not a new thing in the past few years, it is becoming increasingly common, and the wait times are increasing too. Getting a spot at the front of the stage or what is referred to as “barricade” is an intense thing, and it has started to get out of hand in certain situations.
Concerts can be dangerous in and of themselves. It is not uncommon for people to pass out at concerts due to heat, claustrophobia, exhaustion, etc. Crowd crush or crowd surge is also a real issue at certain concerts or festivals. The Astroworld Tragedy of 2021 is the most recent example of this. On the first night of Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival, a crowd surge occurred resulting in the deaths of ten people and over 300 minor injuries. This crowd surge occurred due to an extreme overpopulation of a small area. There have been other cases similar in the past, but what made this incident so awful was the way it was handled. The concert continued for far too long after people were trampled to death and Travis Scott did not issue his insincere apology until a few days later via Instagram.
Concerts never used to be this complicated. Getting tickets is hard and attending the concert can sometimes be even more of a hassle. In all honesty, it will probably only get worse from here. Artists are always trying to do something bigger and better to keep people interested. If you are planning on buying tickets to a concert soon, you will probably need to start saving up a few months in advance. Be sure to start both mental and physical training a few months in advance as well so you can withstand hours of waiting and possibly defend yourself from crowd crush.