By Alexander Norman
A recent surge in ticket prices for live music concerts has forced music fans around the world to reconsider how much money they are willing to pay for a concert experience. Ticket prices to see the world’s biggest stars have risen to the price of some people’s rent. With Ticketmaster’s unethical business practices, you may be surprised by how much your favorite artist’s concert ticket prices are.
This year, worldwide tours from some of the most famous artists such as Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, and Beyoncé have managed to catch the attention of new audiences due to their unusually high ticket fees. The most expensive tickets for Taylor Swift’s “Era’s” tour have risen to an unbelievable amount of above $13,000 on resell websites such as StubHub. For the fanbases, it has been an uphill battle against the Ticketmaster monopoly to lower these prices.
Ticketmaster is currently the only company that can handle the online capacity for high-demand events. Because of this, world-famous artists like Taylor Swift have very little control over their entrance fees. Despite Ticketmaster's claims of allowing the venues and promoters of each event to choose ticket prices, Ticketmaster has a trick up its sleeve to remain in control. Ticketmaster’s “dynamic pricing” feature allows the company to change the price of tickets as they feel necessary.
Another example of Ticketmaster’s tricks to exploit their customers includes fees that are added to ticket prices at checkout. When shopping with Ticketmaster, you may pay for more than what you expected. A single concert ticket tends to have fees for things such as service fees, processing fees, and delivery fees. This has made tickets for less famous artists much more expensive on average than they have been historically.
Although it is easy to point fingers at Ticketmaster, other factors play into the skyrocketing ticket prices. During the COVID-19 outbreak, concerts were non-existent and artists were not allowed to perform for live audiences. This increased the demand for tickets significantly because many people were eager to leave their houses and see their favorite artists in person.
Live music is a beautiful thing that can bring thousands of people together. Unfortunately, it is now becoming more and more of a luxury activity to go to a high-demand concert. There are plenty of different factors contributing to the recent price surge in ticket prices but the monopoly of Ticketmaster is the catalyst behind them all.