Have you ever wanted to buy a ticket for a concert, but it was either too expensive or sold out within seconds? I know I have, as well as my friends. I have been in school many times while my classmates have been sitting in line online trying to get tickets for a concert and ended up not getting them. This needs to stop, and there needs to be an easier way to buy concert tickets that does not include wasting your time sitting with a website tab open for hours. If you are lucky enough to get a chance to buy the ticket, then there is a chance that all the tickets are too expensive. So how can this broken concert ticketing system be fixed? According to Pitchfork, there are six ways to break the concert ticket system: “stagger the presales for big tours, abolish surprise fees, unwind Ticketmaster’s merger with Live Nation, keep resellers in check, give artists a choice on dynamic pricing, and remember the Bandcamp model, and that small can be beautiful.” But do you think these six ways will be implemented to fix the issue? I do not believe this will solve the problem, but they may be able to help. When reading this article, one of the more significant issues I found was the merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Future of Music Coalition’s Erickson states, “Ticketmaster-Live Nation is driving many of the most frustrating changes happening in live music, [and expresses] the company’s alleged influence on fees, cuts taken out of artists’ merch sales, and unfavorable artist contracts. [This is] controlling that much of the industry [and making it] a license to be bullies” (Hogan, p. 4). Erickson explains to the people that this relationship is one of the main reasons the tickets are so expensive and can be resold. This partnership needs to change its agreement or end if they want to try and fix the issue of concert ticket prices and sales.
Another issue on top of the sellers and websites is the resellers. These resellers are the reason the ticket prices have become so high. Fielding Logan, head of touring at the country-centric artist management agency Q Prime South, backs the proposal of “ensur[ing] that artists are allowed to make tickets non-transferable if that is what they decide for their fans. It is an idea that Ticketmaster has also supported in a blog post, and Erickson says most of the artist community is on board too. To avoid resellers, Pearl Jam made tickets non-transferable for its 2022 tour (except in New York and Colorado, where transferability is currently required by law)” (Hogan, p. 5). So, if Ticketmaster is also willing to back up this idea, why is not every artist doing it? Pearl Jam is one of the few who have done it, but why have others not followed? This begs the question: are the artists just in it for money-making and not for their fans? Hogan claims “a recognition that staying small can be meaningful and that music has a value beyond money is important” (p. 6). This gives an artist so much more meaning behind them and proves that they are not just doing it for the money but for the people and trying to inspire others. Every artist needs to make money, but even if they make their tickets non-transferable, that does not mean they will not be making money. It would still earn them a profit while keeping the prices in check and at a reasonable price range for the fans. One thing in the article that did not seem reasonable was revamping the entire U.S. economic system. This “is outside the scope of the debate over how to fix concert tickets” (Hogan, p. 6). I do not think it is possible to change the whole economic system, let alone soon. In the end, there are many little ways the system can change, and the companies and artists need to be willing to put them into place and do what is best for their fans without losing profits.