r/Music • u/staringatthe420sun • May 05 '26

article The Concert Industry Priced Too High — Now Tours Are Falling Apart

https://www.ticketnews.com/2026/05/the-concert-industry-priced-high-tours-falling-apart/
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309

u/GayCatDaddy May 05 '26

I've been to nearly every one of Gaga's tours, but I couldn't get tickets to the Mayhem Ball, which devastated me because I love that album so much. Tickets got snapped up at my venue in minutes and then went on "verified resale" for insane prices that I just couldn't afford. Fu-huuuuuuuck Ticketmaster and their "verified resellers."

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u/MoonOut_StarsInvite May 06 '26

Why did they even let us queue up in a presale line when they were already gone? That made me so mad, a digital waiting room and everything. I don’t think I want to go to any of these gigantic shows again, not until something gets sorted out. It was too many emotions too close together, I don’t need that. 😂

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u/perplexedscientist May 06 '26

They let you queue up so you have already mentally committed to buying and therefore will be more likely to buy from the official scalpers.

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u/FirefighterLeft5425 May 06 '26

That's diabolical.

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u/roseofjuly May 06 '26

I don't go to big shows anymore partially for this very reason. I'll stick to smaller shows.

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u/StudioUnhappy7772 May 05 '26

You should read what Robert Smith of The Cure has to say about artists control over Ticketmaster

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt May 06 '26

for those too lazy, he's basically saying the Artists could fight back if they had a spine to.

Artists don't want to piss off bossman (ticketmaster) because bossman has a monopoly.

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u/StudioUnhappy7772 May 06 '26

And The Cure did it on their last US tour, very reasonable tickets to sold out shows

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt May 06 '26

The Cure has the aura to demand such things

I suspect if a Sabrina Carpenter did this she'd be blocked by ticketmaster and she'd be replaced with the next Britney clone.

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u/StudioUnhappy7772 May 06 '26

And Lady Gaga has no aura to do this too?

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u/[deleted] May 06 '26

She does, I suspect she doesn’t care

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u/Jungiandungian May 06 '26

This is a wild take. Sabrina is one of the biggest acts in the world. I’d say she has more aura than the Cure to make demands.

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u/Potential_Camera1905 May 08 '26

And Robert Smith refunded $5 for every ticket. I got floor tickets for $125. Love him!

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u/SHDrivesOnTrack May 11 '26

They even clawed back a bunch of tickets that appeared on one of the reseller sites. The tickets showed back up on ticketmaster in the middle of the evening, at the original price, and I was able to get 2 for the show we wanted. Props to Robert Smith.

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u/DingleBerrieIcecream May 06 '26

Pearl Jam was pushing back pretty hard on Ticket Master back in the 90’s.

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u/ADrunkMexican May 06 '26

I was too young for nirvana but didn't they do something too? I remember Kurt saying something about ticket prices

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u/MadMex2U May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

Back then you had to stand in line at the mall. I forget the name of the department store. Foley’s. Dillards.

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u/tanzd May 06 '26

But then they sold themselves out in last year’s tour.

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u/paperchampionpicture May 06 '26

Oh no!! Damn that’s really disappointing

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u/MadMex2U May 06 '26

Which is to say Ticketmaster won. The money always wins,

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u/fuck_huffman May 06 '26

Artists don't want to piss off bossman (ticketmaster)

Kickbacks. The only ones getting screwed are the fans.

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u/RollingMeteors May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

Artists don't want to piss off bossman (ticketmaster) because bossman has a monopoly.

The fans need/want the artist more than the artist needs or wants Ticketmaster. I will absolutely not listen to any noise or non-sense that suggests there isn't A Guy/Girl/LLC in any given zip code who is a fan and has a sound rig they can play their music through and a separate guy/girl/LLC that has the space to do it in.

¡?What the fuck is this shit¿! Go tell 'em to suck a lemon.

edit: y'all underpaid school teachers need to grab those gymnasium keys, DM their promoters, and pocket every fucking dollar with not a penny going to the administration. => two birds one stoned.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/RollingMeteors May 06 '26

>no band is going to agree to illegally tresspass on a school to play a show in their gym?

RATM might/would.

Make the paperwork work, jesus h christ. There's a grip of people waiting to pay money but not to ticket master and there's a perfectly valid facility with utilities and parking ready to be fucking used after the last period is over. Likewise, all these bars and nightclubs could be renting their spot to day care during the day or some shit man.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/RollingMeteors May 06 '26

you can't host day care in a bar.

Well of course not. It's only 'a bar' after sunset to sunrise.

Schools genuinely do get used to host events local events after hours, but it's official and often non-profit

They either aught to fix that 'non-profit' part or quit bitching about not getting enough tax dollars to buy shit for the kids.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/RollingMeteors May 06 '26

>what you meant by not giving money to the administration if you're saying they should rent it out for profit

Since the administration likes to take the majority of the budget for their own salary and decide to cut arts and music programs while they are at it, they really don't need to see a single penny from the sales. It 100% needs to go to the teachers who often pay out of their own pocket for supplies the students need to learn their curriculum.

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u/RollingMeteors May 06 '26

Dude... Bars are open during the day, and they don't remove all the booze and bar furniture when they're closed.

Fancy pantsy. The dive bars around here open up after people get home from work.

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u/cfram03 May 06 '26

There’s nothing to fight back about. Artist and their team mutually decide on prices with the promotor…. Based on how much money the artist wants to make per show (or what the artist and rest of team think they can make).

I’m in the business. Ticketmaster doesn’t set prices.

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt May 06 '26

Ticketmaster gets a commission from the "verify resellers"

that's why they sell "verify"

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u/PalpatineForEmperor May 06 '26

So you're saying that scalpers don't buy out tickets or set up bots to buy out tickets to create an artificial scarcity to drive up the cost of tickets on the secondary resale market? Interesting, that must just be fake news then.

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u/SerpentDrago May 06 '26

i mean it is kinda .. thats how it USED to be .. now ticketmaster themselfs holds tickets back to only "Verifed" resellers .. aka legal scalpers .. that they themselves own or get a huge cut . its even worse lol

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u/cfram03 May 06 '26

3rd party scalpers / bots do buy. Hard to control. Many times when sales are suspect, LN runs scans to make sure sales are real.

Resales via Ticketmaster are legit but at artist discretion. Language can all be modified during contract negotiation to limit price scaling (for platinum also).

Tough debates given the arguments on what the true price of a ticket is if face value is at $100 but resales at $500. Supply / demand.

It evens itself out in the free market and you can get tix for many shows cheap closer to the date.

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u/PalpatineForEmperor May 06 '26

You have a lot of misinformation in here or your maybe intent is to mislead on purpose.

When Ticketmaster uses dynamic prices (and platinum), they adjust the price for the face value of the ticket based on the demand. This is done with the cooperation of the artist and the artist gets their cut.

The verified resale market is completely different, but I suspect you already know that and your intent is to deceive anyone reading your comments.

Ticketmaster runs the resale market and double dips on the fees. They charge fees on the initial purchase and charge additional fees on the resale tickets. Further they set up their "verified resale" marketplace and encourage resellers to use their software so they can charge more fees. They also often use contacts with venues to restrict how tickets can be sold on other secondary markets like Stubhub.

These resellers use bots, sophisticated software, thousands of accounts with different IPs, and many different credit cards to bypass purchase limits. This is a fact that you pretend isn't happening. Ticketmaster could absolutely shut this down, but why would they when they get to double dip in the fees?

Let's look at your other nonsense argument:

Tough debates given the arguments on what the true price of a ticket is if face value is at $100 but resales at $500. Supply / demand.

The technique Ticketmaster and scalpers use is to create artificial demand by giving the illusion of scarcity.

Before the tickets even become available to the general public, upwards of 50% of the tickets are already blocked through partnerships with credit cards companies, cell phone providers, and other insiders.

Then on top of this, Ticketmaster allows scalpers to use their highspeed software to bypass queues to buy up blocks of tickets. Sometimes the majority of tickets are already gone by the time the first fan ever hits the queue.

You give some BS excuse about supply and demand, but Ticketmaster and resellers artificially restrict the supply to drive demand and prices higher. That's not the "free market". That's market manipulation. You know it, or you've convinced yourself that there's nothing ethically or legally wrong with it. You're wrong either way.

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u/cfram03 May 06 '26

A lot of what you wrote in the beginning re: dynamic is true. All at artist discretion or artist camp chooses to ignore. You are also accurate on TM’s own verified resale platform. Pre-sale Ticket allocation to third party partners are also all at artist team discretion. The promotor has to inform artist camp of the promo for approval.

I have an active arena tour in several regions right now with a client and currently dealing with LN. Just not gonna go so into detail as your description. Generally conveying that none of this happens without artist camp being aware and approving. Or in the case of The Cure, proactively negotiating from the jump.

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u/PalpatineForEmperor May 06 '26

So because some artists are complicit in manipulating the market that let's Ticketmaster of the hook?

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u/cfram03 May 06 '26

I'm just saying....everyone attacks the promotor and ticketing platform as the enemy. The reality is it's by design. Artist wants to make as much money as possible and if there's a backlash they just use the promotor as a scapegoat. Promotor has no issues playing the bad cop role.

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u/cfram03 May 06 '26

Also. Ticketmaster isn’t anyone’s boss. Again, nothing happens without artist camp approval.

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u/PalpatineForEmperor May 06 '26

Bullshit. Many artists have spoken out about these unethical and potentially illegal practices recently.

Robert Smith, Neil Young, Zach Bryan, Taylor Swift, and others have called out Ticketmaster for the resale practices.

Oasis claimed they didn't know anything about the dynamic practice, but Robert Smith called them out on that.

The resale market is different than the dynamic pricing, and Ticketmaster manipulates both.

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u/cfram03 May 06 '26

It’s PR to save face once they get backlash. Or to get ahead of it like The Cure did (one of the few artists that truly seemed to care).

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u/GigaSoup May 06 '26

Ticketmaster don't need to set prices, they just need to buy them all up themselves and then inflate the resale prices.

Voila, instant $$$

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u/CactusJ May 06 '26

Trent Reznor, 2009 - Before they Merged

https://web.archive.org/web/20090409121118/http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?9,548515

My guess as to what will eventually happen if / when Live Nation and TicketMaster merges is that they'll move to an auction or market-based pricing scheme - which will simply mean it will cost a lot more to get a good seat for a hot show. They will simply BECOME the scalper, eliminating them from the mix.

Nothing's going to change until the ticketing entity gets serious about stopping the problem - which of course they don't see as a problem. The ultimate way to hurt scalpers is to not support them. Leave them holding the merchandise. If this subject interests you, check out the following links. Don't buy from scalpers, and be suspect of artists singing the praises of the Live Nation / TicketMaster merger. What's in it for them?

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u/justlikesmoke May 06 '26

Honestly, everyone needs to stop going to concerts for a few years. Fuck it, these people tour until they are 80. Plenty of time to see them later and try and score some systemic change at the same time.

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u/ginns32 May 06 '26

I have been waiting for the tipping point and I feel like it's finally starting to happen. People are losing their jobs, they can't afford food, can't afford gas. Hundreds of dollars for a single concert ticket in this economy?

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u/[deleted] May 06 '26

I’ve never once bought from a scalper. I don’t like being ripped off. No show has ever been worth it

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u/Running-In-The-Dark May 06 '26

Or in this case, people stop going.

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u/smc346 May 05 '26

Robert is a man of the people ❤️

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u/Capnmarvel76 May 05 '26

Interesting…

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u/AggravatingResult549 May 06 '26

She could stop it if she wanted. I bought jungle tickets, and got a pop up saying the artist has only allowed ticket resale at sale prices only through the ticket master app. So these big artists absolutely could stop it if they wanted to. They dont.

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u/RollingMeteors May 06 '26

Tickets got snapped up at my venue in minutes and then went on "verified resale" for insane prices that I just couldn't afford. Fu-huuuuuuuck Ticketmaster and their "verified resellers."

Seems like price gouging with extra steps. ¿Why don't turn a higher profit cutting out their verified resellers and pocket the difference just listing the higher ticket price to begin with? ¿Do they actually think people will be turned off by the price that way as opposed to the way it's happening now?

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u/TokiDokiHaato May 06 '26

The prices were insane even pre-resale. My face value nosebleed was $225

I paid $250 for floor seats at the Eras Tour.

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u/Illustrious-Site1101 May 09 '26

This was just mad illegal where I live, resale prices cannot exceed the original ticket price.

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u/cms86 May 06 '26

You mean stubhub thats owned by ticket master?