Buying concert tickets in recent years has become an extremely difficult task. Fans are struggling to see their favorite artists live due to an unreasonably competitive and expensive process.
While this issue has been around for a while, one specific tour brought the issue to the spotlight. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which wrapped up in November 2024, completely sold out all 149 of its shows soon after releasing tickets to the public. It was nearly impossible for fans to get seats on any of the dates. According to Ticketmaster Business, on Nov. 15, 2022, the day of the Eras Tour’s first leg Verified Fan presale, Ticketmaster received 3.5 billion system requests, four times its previous peak. Despite all the site traffic, only 2 million tickets were actually sold.
However, many of those 3.5 billion requests were bots and unverified fans (fans who were not selected to receive an artist’s presale code). Ticketmaster Business said that to accommodate the number of people trying to buy tickets, Swift would have needed to perform 900 shows, over six times what she actually performed. Since Ticketmaster could not handle this demand, around 15% of those interacting with the website on that day experienced problems. The presale’s demand was so great that the general sale was ultimately canceled.
“The tickets sold out fast and the line to wait was very long,” senior Shareen Jamal admits.
Many fans found themselves sitting in the ticket queue for hours before even being let into the purchasing screen. By the time they were able to select seats, there were none available. Swifties nicknamed this process “The Great War”, after a song on Swift’s Midnights album.
“We’re always working to improve the ticket-buying experience,” Ticketmaster said in a following press release. “Especially for high demand on sales, which continue to test new limits.”
This struggle to get tickets isn’t exclusive to specific artists. As more artists announce their presence at concerts and music festivals, the fight to get tickets continues to be constant, despite the performer.
“For Bryson Tiller, the tickets sold out really fast,” senior Aashi Patel said. “The site kept on crashing.”
Once tickets sell out on the website the artists initially posted them on, similar ticketing sites and resellers increase the prices heavily. Resellers and bots typically buy tickets with the intention of selling them to make a heavy profit. Fans who are unable to get tickets for the initially sold prices then have no choice but to purchase these overpriced tickets.
“Main concert sites crash all the time, which makes buying really hard,” Patel said. “A lot of people buy just to resell the tickets.”
Recently, Empire of the Sun, a popular electronic music duo released their ongoing “Ask That God” tour. Tickets to see them at the Radius in Chicago sold out soon after they were released on AXS, a ticketing website. However, general admission tickets quickly began appearing on other sites, such as StubHub, SeatGeek, and Vivid Seats. But now, tickets were being priced at no less than $230, over five times what tickets were originally priced at $44.50.
“I feel like if someone is going to sell their ticket it should be for face value,” Jamal said.
The Weeknd, arguably one of the most popular singers right now, just announced his new album, Hurry Up Tomorrow, and with that, a 2025 tour featuring rapper Playboi Carti and producer Mike Dean. Both presale and general sale occurred last week, and unsurprisingly, many fans struggled to find tickets.
“I got The Weeknd off Ticketmaster,” Patel says. “The wait time was really long.”
For fans who were unable to get tickets, there is still hope. While tickets sold out quickly, for those who are willing to pay heavy costs, there are plenty of resale opportunities. Tickets on StubHub are available, with nosebleed seats being around $100, and other areas ranging from $200-$700 for Chicago dates. While prices may seem high, they are nothing compared to the Ticketmaster resale prices, with some Chicago tickets going for more than $2,000.
The high pricing for concert tickets doesn’t stop at resale hikes though. All ticketing websites, regardless of ticket type, charge fees to purchase tickets through their websites. With charges like processing fees and service fees, audiences find themselves paying much more than they originally expected for tickets. Georgetown Law Review even quoted that Americans annually spend almost $65 billion on junk fees, which are additional fees placed on products or services.
“I don’t think [extra fees] are valid because concert tickets as is are already very expensive,” Jamal said.
The difficulty of purchasing concert tickets has become a commonly widespread issue, affecting fans across genres and artists. The combination of unreasonable base prices, website technical overloads, aggressive resellers, and additional fees has turned the process into a frustrating ordeal. Until the ticketing industry addresses these issues, fans will continue to struggle to see artists perform live.
