Recently, Taylor Swift announced  “The Eras Tour,” which excited fans since this is her first tour in four years. This caused fans to buy tickets as soon as they came out, anticipating that this would be a sold-out tour. On Nov. 18 at 10 a.m., tickets went on sale for the public. Over 14 million people logged onto Ticketmaster to buy tickets, and only two million tickets were purchased before Ticketmaster had to put a hold on the rest of the tickets. Many tickets were then resold for triple the price after the shows had already sold out. Live Nation and Ticketmaster control over 70% of ticket sales, causing many concerts to sell out quickly and fans to be disappointed. With Ticketmaster being the primary ticket seller and people only buying tickets just to resell them at a higher price, Ticketmaster is easily becoming the worst ticket seller.

Ticketmaster not only has an issue with ticket availability but also with the prices. Ticketmaster’s fees cost as much as 78% of the ticket price, which causes many of the tickets to be overpriced from the start. Many people were upset to hear that a few of the fans got tickets, but many of those tickets went to bots and resellers. These bots bought tickets and are now turning around and selling them for much more than the original price. Most college students can barely afford the original tickets, let alone the tickets being resold for triple the price. The tickets originally sold for around $50-$900, pending VIP status or not, are now being sold for $20,000 or higher. These ticket prices could easily be avoided if Ticketmaster was more prepared or if tickets were offered on different platforms giving everyone a chance to get a ticket. 

Fans are not the only ones upset by this, popular and famous people are upset as well.

Swift posted a Tweet stating, “I am not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured that they could.” Joe Biden even touched on the issue after much uproar reached the White House. Biden said he would start getting rid of “junk fees” for Americans. This includes the concert ticket fees that have become outrageous. Live Nation also spoke out about ticket sales saying that there is nothing technically wrong with what happened, but they are committed to try and be better. This is not the first time Live Nation has been under fire for their business practices.

Ticketmaster made a deal with the Justice Department in 2010, to last 10 years. This deal made Ticketmaster not threaten other venues when the venues did not use their system. It also made Ticketmaster sell some parts of its company to keep it from becoming a monopoly. However, in 2019 Ticketmaster was found guilty of breaking this deal and in turn, was made to sign the same contract until 2025. Currently, due to the high demand for Swift’s tickets, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are both being investigated again. Ticketmaster should not be the main ticket seller for many reasons. The increase in sales and the amount of legal trouble Ticket Master has been in, should be enough to shut it down and make way for many different ticket services or stricter policies that ensure fairness in ticket buying and pricing.