Going to see your favourite artist in person can be an exhilarating experience, but lately it’s become too expensive. With ticket prices ranging from hundreds of dollars, to over $1000 CAD, it has become exponentially more difficult for fans to see their favourite artists. Ticketmaster has been the pinnacle of this issue, tacking on illogical fees and dynamic pricing right before one checks out of their payment process, further exasperating people. These extra costs include service fees and order processing fees.

Ticketmaster has also been accused of strong-arming venues and artists into using their services, threatening those that fail to comply. This leaves no other option for artists and venues that don’t want to use Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster can prevent venues from holding particular shows, and artists from playing in venues. This leaves Ticketmaster with more than a 70% market share in the ticket-selling market, and a vast monopoly compared to ticket companies like StubHub and Seat Geek, both of whom also have high prices. 

Ticketmaster also withholds large numbers of tickets, and instead sells only a small number to the general public. This ticket hoarding makes it much more difficult to get tickets to various concerts and shows because the rest of those tickets are sold by scalpers, fan clubs, radio stations, etc. This only further worsens the issue of being able to purchase tickets, with tickets selling out in  30 seconds or less of the sale beginning. Ticketmaster has claimed on multiple occasions that they are a fair, safe and transparent market for the fans, but this has been shown to be untrue, time and time again.

It has also been revealed that Ticketmaster has had secret partnerships with scalpers and the reselling industry. Both scalpers and Ticketmaster stand to gain from a partnership. Ticketmaster has even begun to allow scalpers to buy tickets before everyone else and drive up the prices.While Ticketmaster has made efforts to reconcile and remedy this issue, it simply isn’t enough.

So, what can audiences do about these rising prices and unfair market? Absolutely nothing; that is, until more laws requiring transparency about fees and a seller’s identity on Ticketmaster and similar sites are passed. There are no good alternatives to purchasing tickets that don’t have similar issues or aren’t subsidiaries of Ticketmaster’s parent company “LIVE NATION”. Audiences don’t have much of a choice on how to get tickets, so they  can either risk it by buying tickets at the venue on the day of the show, or shell out some big bucks to see their favourite artists.