Ticketmaster, you're the problem, it's you

Darcy Mullane ' 24

Website Designer

Ticketmaster, a well known company that sells tickets to live events, has let down fans time and time again over the past few years. From extremely popular concerts for artists like Taylor Swift to lesser known artists such as Gracie Abrams, getting tickets on Ticketmaster has proven to be a challenging process. The process of getting tickets for shows consists of waiting in an online queue for what can be hours.

While it’s true that the internet has made buying tickets for live events more practical, after the growing popularity of online buying, the prices for tickets have skyrocketed. Buying tickets before the takeover of the internet consisted of lining up for hours and whoever was first in line got to pick their tickets first. The tickets were the same price for each place in the venue, meaning that no one was spending over one thousand dollars for one ticket, just because it was a better seat.

Another problem with Ticketmaster and its prices is that scammers and robots buy the tickets with ease, then go on to resell them at extremely high prices. For instance, the price for one ticket to Taylor Swift might be as high as $1,385. It may be a good seat, but it is extremely unethical to double the price of a ticket to make a profit. The line between what is ethical and what is unethical for reselling tickets has blurred.

Although Taylor Swift is a very popular singer and it was predicted to be a struggle, Ticketmaster is largely at fault for the difficult time fans had getting tickets.

To put it in simpler terms, Ticketmaster was not ready for it.

Mary Piscatella '24 stressed out over Ticketmaster.

To begin, Ticketmaster sent out presale codes to 1.4 million people, when these presale codes are supposed to only be for a select few verified fans, so they can have an easier time getting tickets. This huge amount of people getting on the website caused it to crash. For those lucky fans who did get into the queue, they had to wait up to eight hours to get into the part of the website where they can buy tickets. After waiting a couple hours and finding tickets for a reasonable price, a phrase too many fans know all too well would come up: “Sorry, another fan beat you to these tickets.”

This angered many fans because they waited hours just to not get tickets or for the prices to be outrageously expensive. To fix this problem, Ticketmaster could have notifications for the people in the queue saying what tickets are left and what the prices are.

Among fans world-wide, some Louisville girls have also experienced troubles with Ticketmaster.

Olivia Haber ’26 had verified fan presale code and a loyal fan boost which increased her chances of getting tickets, however, she still experienced many problems and frustrations while trying to purchase tickets for Taylor Swift’s tour. At first her mom tried to buy tickets, but with a queue of over 3000 people when Haber’s mom got out of the queue, she saw there were a minimal amount of seats left. In addition, every time she managed to click on seats to purchase, her mom would get notified that another fan beat her to those tickets. Long story short, her brother, who also had a presale code, got through the queue and was able to buy tickets.

While Haber was able to buy tickets she still went through an unnecessary amount of trouble. This trouble is not her fault at all, but rather Ticketmaster’s for creating such an unfair and competitive system surrounding the purchasing of tickets is the reason why we can’t have nice things.

Another solution to make buying tickets to live events less difficult is to stagger the times when people can buy tickets to specific dates, especially when the tickets are in such high demand.

The reason tickets are sold has completely shifted from being for the enjoyment of others to large companies monopolizing off of fans. The mastermind of Ticketmaster should take responsibility for the constant problems occurring and strive to make the system behind buying tickets more user friendly and fearless.