Concert ticket prices have climbed over the years, and resellers are driving them higher, which has sparked mixed reactions among fans of popular artists.
Many students enjoy concerts of their favorite artists and attend them with their friends and families. Concerts have been fun outings for decades, allowing people to enjoy live music and time with their companions.
“I love the experience of going with friends and family and dressing up for the concert, and just bonding over shared interests and favorite songs,” said Carlmont sophomore Alexis Gee.
Over the years, resellers have been taking over the ticket market. Reselling allows people to sell tickets if they can no longer make an event due to sickness, emergencies, etc. It can also enable fans to purchase last-minute tickets if a show they were hoping to attend was sold out before.
Many ticketing sites like Ticketmaster have policies for reselling, making the resale market more monitored. However, ticket scalpers, or resellers, still often use bots to obtain large amounts of tickets before real customers do. This has made it much harder for people to buy tickets at original prices, without getting beaten in the act by resellers.
An article by Capital News Service states that on secondary markets such as StubHub and Vivid Seats, some customers were charged almost 203% of the original price the ticket was listed at. Although there are no rules against reselling, there is some controversy.
“I don’t think reselling is very fair because artists create music for their fans, but resellers end up buying so many tickets and marking them up, which ends up limiting the amount of tickets actual fans can get,” said Carlmont sophomore Zoe Norris.
Recently, Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine Tour” sold out seconds after the general ticket sale started on Sept. 18. Many fans expressed disappointment with getting a message saying, “No tickets available,” just minutes after queuing up on various ticketing sites. Currently, the remaining tickets are at resale prices, which range from $400 to $2,000, depending on the location of the seat.
“A lot of people who resell look to make a profit on their purchase of the original ticket, which puts some people in the unfortunate situation of not being able to afford resale tickets,” said David Weyant, a Carlmont High School business teacher.
Similarly, according to an article by People Magazine, some tours with the most competitive ticket pricing include those of artists like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Adele. The average price of a resold Taylor Swift ticket on SeatGeek is $1,311, while some resale tickets for Adele’s Las Vegas residency were sold for $40,000.
“From a business standpoint, I guess it would make sense to mark up tickets when reselling, but it’s not ethical and fair to everyone else,” Gee said.
Additionally, according to USA Today, the demand for live music increased after COVID due to people being away from it for so long. The increase in demand comes with an increase in ticket prices, with the number of resellers also increasing in the hopes of gaining profit.
Ticket prices have seemingly increased over the past few decades, but so has the quality. Advancements include better sound amplification, bigger venues and stadium concerts, better stage design and graphics, etc. As prices have risen over time, so have the quality and experience.
“My favorite concert experience was the ‘Grand National Tour’ with SZA and Kendrick Lamar, because they perform very well together, and it was definitely worth the money I paid,” Norris said.
