Over the last few years, many concertgoers have felt the increase in the price of concert tickets and official tour merchandise. Statistics show that between 2021-2025, the average price of concert tickets has risen by 80.5%.
For many students, the price of going to see Sabrina Carpenter or Alex Warren can almost cost as much if not more than, their weekly rent. What is causing this increase in prices for a once-in-a-lifetime experience?
Lola Hurst, a student from Marjon, said that the introduction of dynamic pricing has made buying tickets “more stressful because you have to plan around it so that you are in the queue in time to get the better tickets for an affordable price”.
“I don’t agree with dynamic pricing; it means a lot of people end up missing out because they didn’t log in soon enough to the queue, and by the time they get through, the prices have increased for them to afford”, she stated.
However, the move from camping outside record shops to using Ticketmaster has seen a significant increase in not only scalpers, but also extravagant resale ticket prices.
The popularity of websites like ViaGogo has seen resale prices skyrocket, with a good portion of tickets being fake. There have been multiple complaints about the use of bots to resell tickets on social media, prominently during Coldplay’s World Of Sphere tour.
While the British Government have recently announced that they are taking action to make it illegal for scalpers to resell tickets, many fans believe that artists and Ticketmaster are not doing enough to solve the issue.
Evie Moore is one of the many concertgoers who have stated their anger over the way that scalpers and ticket resellers are dealt with.
“I honestly don’t think that Ticketmaster do enough to stop bulk ticket buying by scalpers. I mean, typically for big concerts they’ll have a limit of four to six tickets per transaction rather than per account, so there’s nothing there to stop people from going back on and buying even more.”
“Then a few days later, the tickets are up again on resale or online for a much higher price, and Ticketmaster doesn’t do anything to stop that either.” She said.