The Concert Ticket Conundrum: Navigating a Maze of Obstacles
The Allure of Live Music and the Nightmare of Ticket Acquisition
Attending a live concert can be an unforgettable experience, a moment etched in one’s memory. However, the arduous journey to secure tickets at a reasonable cost has become a nightmare.
Obstacle Course: The Maze of Ticket Acquisition
The release of tickets for popular shows triggers pandemonium. Errors plague attempts to purchase, while virtual queues stretch for hours. The ticketing site may even crash, often due to an onslaught of bots trying to gain access.
Resale sites offer tickets at exponentially inflated prices, far exceeding what fans are willing to pay. The desperation to witness their favorite artists leads many to succumb to these exorbitant costs. In 2024, the best seats for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour commanded prices of up to $200,000 – a sum sufficient to cover the cost of a four-year private college education without financial aid.
Frustration and Fury: The Fan’s Perspective
Music fans are rightfully disheartened and furious. The fact that the industry is dominated by a single entity, Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, exacerbates the situation. The Department of Justice is pursuing an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, alleging the abuse of exclusive ticketing contracts to maintain a monopoly.
The Roots of the Crisis: Demand vs. Supply
While it is tempting to blame a single party for the chaos and excessive costs, the reality is more complex. The interplay of high demand and limited supply contributes significantly to the current predicament. Millions of fans clamor to attend concerts of popular artists like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, or Harry Styles, but the number of shows and seats is finite.
The price of concert tickets has been steadily rising even on the primary market, where fans initially purchase tickets. According to Pollstar, the average ticket price for the top 100 music tours in 2023 was $122.84 – a substantial hike from $91.86 in 2019 and a significant outpacing of inflation. The average price for the top 10 grossing tours in 2023 soared even higher to $152.97.
Factors Fueling the Price Surge
Several factors, including high fees and the withholding of tickets from the public, contribute to the price surge. A 2018 Government Accountability Office report indicates that fees constitute an average of 27 percent of the total ticket cost.
Presales: A Privileged Path
A significant portion of a venue’s capacity is often reserved for presales, granting exclusive access to a select few: VIP guests, music industry executives, corporate sponsors, media outlets, and the like. A 2018 Government Accountability Office report revealed that 10 to 30 percent of tickets for large concerts are sold through presales, with that percentage rising as high as 65 percent for major artists in large venues. In 2009, an investigation by Nashville’s NewsChannel 5 uncovered that only 1,591 tickets for a Taylor Swift concert were available to the public in a venue capable of holding 13,330 people. In 2019, Live Nation admitted to diverting tens of thousands of tickets from a Metallica tour, selling them directly on resale sites rather than at face value.
Lack of Transparency and Unequal Opportunity
Economist Pascal Courty of the University of Victoria emphasizes the critical issue of transparency. "It’s very rare that the public knows how many tickets are actually sold," he says. While stratospheric demand for popular artists is undeniable, the practice of withholding so many tickets from the public exacerbates the situation.
Elizabeth Alume, a 27-year-old fan, incurred significant expenses to travel and secure resale tickets to see the K-pop group BTS, a testament to the lengths fans are willing to go to witness their favorite acts. She spent $2,200 and $1,600 on tickets for concerts in Vegas and LA, respectively.
The Role of Ticket Brokers: The Scalping Industry
The ticket resale market, where hoarded tickets meet unprecedented demand, poses a major challenge for fans. These days, purchasing a ticket for a major concert requires meticulous preparation, including calendar alerts and multiple devices armed with the ticketing site.
For particularly popular shows, fans may need to register for the sale through systems like Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan, which employs algorithms and data analysis to distinguish bots from humans. However, even Verified Fans are not guaranteed access to tickets. For the most sought-after shows, they are placed in a lottery, with only a select few receiving access codes for the sale.
Ticketmaster’s implementation of these hurdles aims to prevent professional resellers from acquiring tickets in bulk for the purpose of resale at a profit. The specific metrics used by Ticketmaster to identify resellers are kept secret, but certain clues have emerged. "It seems like if you’ve seen the artists in the past, you have a better chance of being selected," says Jason Koebler, a co-founder of the tech site 404 Media. "If your credit card and your registered address with Ticketmaster is near the city that you’re trying to see the show in, you have a better chance. If your Ticketmaster account is older, you have a better chance."
The Black Market: Professional Resellers and Industrial-Scale Operations
Despite Ticketmaster’s efforts, determined professionals can circumvent these obstacles. Today, Koebler reveals the existence of a black market where individuals sell Ticketmaster accounts, including aged accounts designed to appear more legitimate. Ticket brokering, or "scalping," as fans often pejoratively refer to it, is a well-established and professionalized industry.
Serious brokers possess not just one credit card with entertainment perks, but an entire arsenal. They infiltrate artist fan clubs by paying membership fees. They also purchase presale access codes online, bypassing credit card sign-ups.
Ticketmaster’s attempts to combat bots have also been met with sophisticated advancements in reseller software. Scalpers invest heavily in tools that enable them to operate faster and acquire more tickets than a single human could. They employ subscription-based web browsers that simulate multiple users waiting in virtual lines. They maintain vast collections of burner phones and credit cards.
Enforcement Challenges: A Cat-and-Mouse Game
Curbing the activities of scalpers has proven to be a continuous cat-and-mouse game. While ticket resale is not illegal in most jurisdictions, the use of bots is prohibited. However, enforcement against resellers has been lax.
In practice, attempts to crackdown on scalpers have made the process of purchasing tickets more cumbersome for everyone, including genuine fans. The disastrous rollout of tickets to Swift’s tour last year left many fans empty-handed. Going head-to-head with a scalper, fans are unlikely to emerge victorious. "You’re competing against people whose livelihoods depend on being able to buy and sell these tickets," says Koebler. Concert ticket flipping has become a lucrative enterprise for adept resellers. According to Pitchfork, resale tickets for Swift’s North American tour last year averaged $3,801, far exceeding the original face value of non-VIP tickets, which ranged from $49 to $449. The value of her tickets was such that even ordinary individuals jumped into the game, selling tickets for a profit rather than attending the shows.
Addressing the Demand-Supply Imbalance
Scalpers are a major problem, but the root of the chaos lies in the overwhelming demand for concert tickets, a demand that far outstrips supply. To address this imbalance, several options are available to artists and ticket providers.
Increasing Supply: More Shows, Larger Venues
Artists can try to play more shows at the largest possible venues to accommodate the high demand. Nonetheless, this approach has limitations, as artists may face physical or logistical constraints.
Fair Lotteries: A Challenge with Enforcement
A lottery system can provide a more equitable distribution of tickets, giving everyone a fair chance to attend. However, such lotteries face the challenge of preventing scalpers from exploiting the system.
Raising Primary Market Prices: A Controversial Option
A less popular but potentially effective solution is to raise the prices of tickets on the primary market. This strategy aims to reduce the gap between the primary and resale market prices, thereby deterring scalpers. However, artists may be reluctant to adopt this approach due to the potential backlash from fans and their desire to make shows accessible to all.
The Debate: Merit-Based Allocation vs. Equitable Access
The intense competition for concert tickets has led to calls for a system based on merit. Some argue that the most devoted fans, who have streamed the most music, purchased the most albums and merchandise, should be given priority. However, such a system raises questions about fairness and accessibility. Time and financial resources can be limiting factors, potentially excluding deserving fans.
A Collective Effort: Collaboration for a Solution
The concert ticket crisis is a multifaceted issue requiring a collaborative effort to find sustainable solutions. Artists, ticket providers, government agencies, and fans must work together to address the demand-supply imbalance and strike a balance between fairness and profitability.
While the challenges are significant, the goal is to create a system that allows genuine fans to access tickets at reasonable prices without resorting to the secondary market or falling prey to unethical practices.
