As concerts and tours pop up for every rising and established artist, it’s all too common for ticket prices to rise in response to demand and all-around rising costs. Genuine fans race to the long queues to wait for hours to see their favorite artists, already willing to pay a pretty penny, just to get beat out by bots placed by scalpers.
Popular ticketing websites like Ticketmaster and StubHub don’t have strict regulations on scalping or reselling prices, and they can profit from both the original ticket sale and the resale. This encourages people who have ample time and technology skills on their hands to make a quick buck, profiting off of desperate fans trying to see their favorite artist.
While these ticket systems can de-incentivize scalping by setting a limit on resale tickets or limiting the amount of tickets bought by an individual, the websites often don’t due to the profits being made. There has been a push for limits and plans are being made, but implementation is more challenging to maintain. A few artists have put forth efforts to stop outrageous ticket reselling, including Radiohead, who used an alternative ticket-selling platform. On this platform, there were limited price hikes and the band offered ticket trades at face value.
This phenomenon has been the focus of some political attention, including from the current president. Trump partnered with Kid Rock to sign an executive order (I know, one of many) to stop price-gouging of tickets by increasing transparency about additional fees and preventing “unfair” pricing. This order was signed on March 31 so implementation is preliminary, and the effectiveness is yet to be measured.
While small measures have been made to curb the unfair ticketing market, the fans suffering won’t be getting fair prices anytime soon. Future plans to make concerts a realistic opportunity for true fans will hopefully be put into place soon.