While increasing prices of tickets for a variety of events has been an ongoing issue, price control has become significantly more difficult and important in the post-pandemic world. Now there is a remarkably higher demand to attend ticketed events, such as concerts, than there was before COVID-19 sent everyone into isolation. As teenagers with only so much money to burn, the Dubs have some interesting takes about how rising ticket prices have affected them. 

Some event-goers have found other ways to obtain their tickets without breaking the bank. Many smaller ticketing platforms, such as AXS, StubHub, and Tickpick have recently become more popular because of their lower service fees, and lack of exposure in a market dominated by Ticketmaster. These platforms, however, only work best for smaller events where ticket prices are not as competitive in the first place. Senior Grace Hardison recently attended a Shrek-themed rave and got her tickets for this event from Tickpick. “I really liked that Tickpick had no extra service fees,” Hardison said. “I want to go to more raves in the future, and I am using Tickpick to sell my extra Taylor Swift tickets for a reasonable price.” 

There are also many people who take advantage of the high demand by buying tickets en masse and reselling them to make a profit. This online marketplace has gone unchecked, mostly due to the lack of restrictions placed on the event ticket industry and the dominance of large ticket-selling enterprises like Ticketmaster. Many ticket resellers use online bots to select the tickets that they buy and to create the resale price, and are barely even involved in the process. You can call it wrong or you can call it smart, and even some NAHS students are using this marketplace to their advantage. “I bought tickets to the Taylor Swift Midnights concert for about 150 dollars each, and resold all of them for 600-800 dollars each,” said senior Noah Walsey. “It would have been cool to go to the concert, but I’m not enough of a Swiftie to turn down 800 bucks.”

Those in the entertainment industry, especially popular singers whose concerts are in high demand, are facing backlash from fans and the media for continuing to use Ticketmaster and LiveNation to sell tickets for their events. Taylor Swift faced criticism for using Ticketmaster for her upcoming Eras Tour because tickets were bought out almost immediately by resellers and the new prices were extraordinarily high. The rising star country artist Zach Bryan decided to take matters into his own hands for his upcoming “Burn, Burn, Burn” Tour by using the AXS ticketing system to set reasonable prices, only give a certain number of fans access to the marketplace, and ensure that tickets could only be resold at their original price. “It was an extremely chaotic process to get into the sale and get the tickets that I wanted,” said senior Lizzie Havey, one of the lucky selected fans to get tickets. “However, I liked that they were price-controlled and didn’t get very expensive.”

The event ticket market is constantly changing, and giants such as Ticketmaster are now under scrutiny for their apparent monopoly on the industry. It will be interesting to see how prices in this industry are brought under control in the future, but one thing is for sure: The Dubs will always find a way to make it to a concert.