As the COVID-19 pandemic has slowly come to an end and concerts have returned, the skyrocket in ticket prices are leaving concert goers bothered due to a higher demand making it difficult for most fans to attend.
According to Fox 25, the average American is willing to spend close to $270 on concert tickets. In Olivia Rodrigo’s “GUTS” tour, the average cost upfront was roughly $200, a cost many committed fans can not afford. Artists such as Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen have tickets selling for around $480 upfront. Though that number may sound like a lot, many will be shocked to learn that the average ticket for Taylor Swift’s most recent show, “The Eras Tour” is nearly $1,088 and some of the best seats in the stadiums cost upwards of $5,000. Additionally, in many of Adele’s concerts in Las Vegas, tickets on resale apps such as Ticketmaster or SeatGeek are sold for $2,000 in some of the more extreme instances.
Many of these overpriced tickets are a direct cause of resellers. Often, resellers will buy tickets in bulk and put them on sale with much more extreme prices to make profit. They understand that many fans will buy concert tickets that they can get off of ticket websites, even if that means paying unreasonable amounts of money. The high demand of tickets has snowballed into frequent fans waiting in queues for hours on end just to be wait listed or not even receive tickets.
“If tickets are too high then I won’t go,” Marissa Molliver said. Many fans are frustrated with rising costs, some have chosen to opt out of going to concerts completely.
The ticket-buying experience had caused more complications by the rising resale ticket prices, which often led resellers to gain more profit than the artist themselves. Elliana Damaso said “resale websites take away from artists and the experience knowing that my money isn’t going to who is performing most of the time.”
Since the end of the pandemic, the concert industry has been impacted in numerous ways, ultimately leaving fans torn between a fun experience and willingness to spend vast amounts of money.
