Blog - What's up with concert tickets?

I will openly admit it now — I have seriously considered spending insane amounts of money to go see one of my favorite musicians perform live in concert.

In this day and age concert tickets are ridiculously expensive and are making the live music industry difficult to access for those who are not willing or able to spend $500 on a Harry Styles ticket, for example. An article from Billboard explained that some artists are using a type of ticketing called “dynamic pricing.” Essentially what this means is ticket prices are adjusted based on current demand. The face value of a ticket might be set by the artist, and then that price can fluctuate on the main selling website based off demand. On resale sites, like Stubhub, these prices can also fluctuate higher or lower based off what has been seen on the main sale sites.

To keep talking about Harry Styles, Ticketmaster faced backlash from Styles’ fans late this summer when the most recent batch of tickets for his North American leg of Love of Tour went on sale. Time explains some of the backlash Ticketmaster faced from fans accusing the ticket broker of withholding tickets and price gouging. Some fans took to social media to point out price inconsistencies as well.

While face-value tickets may be reasonably priced there are tons of fees tacked onto the final price. The Time article mentioned how those fees could cost up to 78% of the actual ticket price. Another thing Ticketmaster specifically does is withhold some tickets for “special groups” like certain credit card members or people who have unlocked some sort of ultra fan status.

Barriers like these make it incredibly difficult for concerts and live music to be accessible. While this is just one example of one concert for one artist and one ticket selling platform, it’s no secret that the ticket prices for any live music event are ridiculously high. While this is endlessly frustrating, it is important for fans to be grateful for the opportunity to attend these events, but also keep in mind all of those who cannot afford to shell out exorbitant amounts of money.