www.ticketnews.com: Ticketmaster defended its role in surging ticket prices, issuing an official statement this week in response to a letter demanding answers from Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) in the wake of the massive controversy over Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s 2023 tour. The Live Nation Entertainment-owned ticketing company has been under fire for much of the summer as fans have expressed anger and frustration at the “platinum” and dynamic systems that have sent ticket prices through the roof as the company has encouraged its roster of artists to put them into practice – padding its bottom line to record revenue levels as live events have returned.
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This Ticketmaster scandal reminds me a lot of many issues that arise when corporations are able to monopolize on a certain expertise by making it so accessible. A similar situation is with TurboTax. In comedian Hasan Minhaj’s “Patriot Act” which was on Netflix, he exposes this way of maximizing profit by bringing unknowing customers to paywalls, cranking up prices, and making their platform the most accessible. When you go to buy tickets online, the first link is Ticketmaster. Any unsuspecting individual would click the first link, as many do when Googling. In many ways, this is ruining the industry. In an era where live events are already very scarce, making prices unnecessarily high is only going to scare more people away from the live entertainment business. It is also important to mention that the way that Ticketmaster runs is also not positive on the end of the venues. Over the summer I worked as an intern at a venue that would constantly tell me about how Ticketmaster isn’t worth it, but it’s the only option because it is so accessible and popular. Otherwise, they wouldn’t get nearly as many sales if they did it any other way, even though the profit margins were smaller.
Ticketmaster and other ticket reselling companies have been price gouging for years and it is certainly a positive step forward to see that someone is finally taking some action to prevent it. I have looked online for tickets to shows and seen tickets go from $100 to $500 to $4000 all within a few days for the same section of seats. This goes against everything being taught as an equitable practice and makes many arts and events unattainable for many people who don’t have expendable income. Congressman Pascrell had many great ideas to improve the industry, especially allowing for fans to see the total price before getting to the final screen and purchasing the tickets and showing the original price for any resale tickets so buyers can tell if resellers are trying to rip them off. The ability to limit the number of transfers is interesting and could potentially pose an issue for people who may have something else come up and need to get rid of the tickets. All in all, it seems like something might finally be done to make the event ticketing industry more equitable.
Ticketmaster is really trying to pass the buck to Event Organizers and artist representatives as if they are the ones responsible for the system that was built. The reality is that online ticket sales allowed for mass purchases from online resellers who could then limit the supply and drive up prices. The only reason there is so much demand at onsale is because that’s likely you’re only opportunity to purchase the tickets directly from the original seller at a decent price. Ticketmaster’s suggestion of all-in pricing legislation is really insulting because as the dominate name in the industry, they have the power to just implement an all-in pricing policy and other sites like stubhub would be pressured to follow suit. They don’t need the government to tell them what to do if they agree it’s a good idea. What we should have is legislation against price gouging. If an item is for sale for a set price, you should not be allowed to buy up all the supply and then resale for 4 to 5 times what you bought it for.
This reminds me again of all the controversy companies like ticketmaster or stubhub sparked at the beginning of the pandemic when they refused to refund money for tickets cancelled due to Covid 19, even if consumers had purchased tickets already.
The fact is that websites like these are basically scalpers, themselves. They hold no stake in whether or not these shows are successful and have every reason to try and charge as much as possible to maximize their own profits. I hope that this wholly inequitable practice can be smashed so that people can see entertainment without having to basically go broke. I agree with Victor that if they agree with the accusations leveled against them, they should do something about it. The amount the are marking up these non-tangible goods is disgusting. Again, they have no stake in these productions, they just happen to have infrastructure for selling tickets and we let them abuse that power for some reason
I’ve heard a lot about Ticketmaster over the last couple of years - how expensive tickets are, and how hard they are to get. This complaint was going to happen - and Ticketmaster almost seems to have been waiting for it, pushing the prices and the policies up and up until now. Ticketmaster does try to move some of the blame in their response, but realistically, in the end, Ticketmaster could set price caps or implement its own policies/pricing strategies - they are a company, and in our society, they will always be working towards making more money and raising their profit margins. (I’m not a big concert person and I didn’t even know that tickets went for over 1k - that’s a mind boggling amount of money for a concert) I’m curious what will happen with this letter, if it’ll just blow over or if some actual regulation will spawn from it. Time will tell I guess.
I was a very recent victim of this Ticketmaster debacle. I've been a Paramore fan since I was 7 or so. My first CD I ever bought was their album Brand New Eyes. I never really went to concerts, but during the pandemic I realized I really wanted to start going to concerts when Covid went away...back when I thought this is something that even could "go away". When Paramore dropped off the grid for 5 years I thought I may have lost my chance to ever see them live, but they announced a tour this summer and I bought tickets day of. Even after doing Ticketmasters "verified fan list" by the time I got to the tickets, they were entirely being sold by re-sellers at absolutely unfathomable prices. I think these suggestions are really wonderful and I sincerely hope some get implemented. I think showing the price originally paid for tickets and having actual consequences for once would be wonderful.
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