As artists such as Kendrick Lamar ramp up the hype for upcoming tours, many people save up their money hoping to see their favorite artists perform live. However, over the past few years, it has been getting progressively more difficult to not only afford tickets but even have access to them in the first place.
Most concerts have been using Ticketmaster, a platform facing mass controversy since Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour due to their handling of ticket sales. Ticketmaster has the option for artists to use “dynamic pricing,” which makes prices increase as demand increases. Because of this, concerts are a luxury for most.
Freshman Liam Fanning was excited for My Chemical Romance’s Long Live The Black Parade tour. He was also thrilled to hear about a Foo Fighters tour. However, due to dynamic pricing, those dreams will sadly not become his reality.
“Things like Ticketmaster advertise themself as easy to use, but the tickets are actually expensive and the site is not easy to use. It makes people who have more money get the tickets first,” he said. “I wanted to go listen to peak music like Everlong, but tickets are so expensive that I was left to never experience the amazing experience that is going to a concert.”
Caden Geaber, better known as Lil Skirty, is also opinionated on ticket pricing. An avid fan of music, he believes that presale should be available to fans.
“Presale needs to be open; all these music apps have statistics on who listens to artists… send those a ticket offer so they can get in before the general public. I’m about to spend 350 bucks on Kendrick all by myself,” he said.
For the average person, being able to see their favorite artist is simply impossible. Dynamic pricing is a diabolical way for companies and artists to gain as much profit as possible.
According to Northeastern Global News, dynamic pricing isn’t the only issue. Even if artists turn off dynamic pricing, there is the issue of people using bots to buy tickets as soon as they go on sale, just to resell them at astronomical prices.
While I understand that Ticketmaster is a for-profit company, I don’t understand why a company that is worth over $22 billion needs to make tickets inaccessible for the average income. As someone who was among My Chemical Romance’s top listeners this year, I think it is only fair that I have the opportunity to see them without paying ridiculous amounts of money.
There is more to this problem than just dynamic pricing and resellers. For many, it is difficult to even get to buy tickets because of queue lines.
“I got waitlisted and wasn’t even able to look at tickets,” said senior Hannah Heidari, who was hoping to see The Eras Tour before it ended. “The site kept saying that there was one person ahead of me in line before sending me back, it was so awful.”
The best solution to this problem is to get rid of dynamic pricing altogether and make tickets accessible to fans of the artists first. This would not only help keep prices manageable but also help lower the amount of resellers getting their hands on tickets first.
“Ticketmaster ruins ticket buying,” said freshman Max Giroux. He hoped to see Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, The Creator. “I wasn’t even able to buy tickets because they sold out too quickly. Tickets should be sold through music streaming apps, like Spotify.”
If some of these artists truly want to show their love for fans, they should thank fans by offering them the chance to get tickets first and turn off dynamic pricing. Like Giroux, many people are left feeling disappointed and wondering if large companies will finally get the hint that going out to concerts and having fun should be an experience for all.
