To think that ticket selling for big gigs is a total scam and the genuine fans are suffering

Virtual Ticketmaster monopoly .. I don’t think they give a fig about resales, as they make money from them .

Many years ago I saw the White Stripes. The tickets went on sale the day before the gig. It was made clear that whoever purchased them had to show ID and the card used to pay (which was ticked off on paper after they checked 😁 ). Also max 2 tickets. It didn't completely stop touting (I could have bought two and let a stranger stand with me when I 'signed in') but it was something.

There has been so much hysteria over gigs recently (Olivia rodrigo/Taylor swift) I know Sabrina Carpenter has been around a while but it's only recently that she's blown up so I'm surprised at the cost of her tickets. Marketing teams are doing an excellent job right now(!)

Totally agree. My DD is in the same position and we just cant justify paying that much for tickets. It makes me so sad for her as when I was her again I started going to see bands I loved and it was no where near as expensive as it is now even with inflation etc.

See my other posts for links, the industry and artists have been trying for years to ban this. But the Tories kept blocking their pleas to make it illegal.

amp.theguardian.com/money/article/2024/may/29/revealed-how-touts-drew-up-secret-plans-to-sabotage-labours-ticket-reforms

They write computer programmes to circumnavigate the software. Bots.

https://queue-it.com/blog/ticket-bots/

touting is big business!

I've stopped buying in advance and started buying last minute on Twickets. Miles better.

There are always tickets available for cheaper than the list price on there.

I think the Wimbledon ticket way is the way to go-you can’t transfer tickets. If you can’t go, all of your tickets go back to Wimbledon. I know that’s unfair for oriole in your group but currently it’s a disgrace.

most Ticketmaster presales have a waiting room open 15 minutes before the sale starts, then everyone in the 'waiting room' gets bumped into the queue in a random slot as soon as it hits 12pm (or whatever the sale time is). If you daughter was only clicking the link at 12pm and not already in the waiting room then it's likely she will have been behind everyone who was. The people reselling will have been much further up the queue and purchased ones which were selling for face value. Birmingham is only a 15,000 seater venue, so being 16,000 in the queue for a presale where not all tickets will be available is never going to mean you get the pick of tickets.

@Clamchops The highest I saw the tickets was £385, but they were available from £60, and I saw some for £86 myself. The OP called the accessible line which will only sell tickets to those who require them and got some for £80. She was buying from a different pool that most of the general pubic could access, but they were the same price as many tickets online. I'm assuming either the accessible tickets were not dynamically priced or were just a bit slower to sell.

Yes all well known and big artists do. Maybe not Joe Blogs playing Reading town hall but big artists definitely do.

Imagine sell on the day/first come first served for Sabrina carpenter, would be chaos 😂

My days of going to arena gigs are long past, and now I mostly go to small independent venues. One of the attractions was being able to look at the listings on Saturday afternoon and just rock up that evening and see the band.

But recently I've seen gigs cancelled because pre-sales are too slow and the artist / venue / both can't be sure of covering their costs. I've spoken to a few artists about it, and this is a real issue. So pay-on-the-door only would probably mean very few performances ever taking place, sadly.

(I'm now mixing and matching between booking a week ahead and turning up on the day; can't always know if I'll be free until the day).

They should make all concerts pay on the door on the night, no tickets. Back to how it used to be.

yes and no. Sabrina did use dynamic pricing on some tickets "platinum" is code for dynamically priced, but not all. Some were just normal tickets (these sold out very quick) and some were your standard package tickets (inflated price for ticket + merch).

A friend in the industry spoke to me about dynamic pricing and explained with the idea of - if fans are prepared to spend £300 on a ticket then why should a tout get it? Why not the artist, their team, and the venue? The idea behind dynamic pricing is that all that resale profit would make its way not the hands of the people putting on the show. I sort of get the theory, but I just don't think it works for a show which is so overly subscribed that it will sell out in minutes, the price will just be driven up to the limit and stay there, not fluctuate over months until the show happens or sells out.

yes, the Artist management & agent in conjunction with the promoter and ticketmaster can change the price of tickets according to demand at any time.

this is not done automatically by ticketmaster as it needs approval from all parties.

I think that moaning was largely because they tried to introduce it halfway through the two weeks of presales, many people had bought tickets before it was the rule and were concerned they would be impacted as they would now fall foul of this. If it's the rule beforehand and well advertised as such, including a screen confirming this on the way to checkout, then it can be planned for and not an issue. Regarding reselling tickets you can via Ticketmaster which is great for fans as (at least for Taylor Swift) they were price capped so could only be upsold for an extra 15% which in most cases was just enough to recover all fees.

Yes the Sabrina Carpenter thing was crazy considering she is a new artist. DD ended up paying £200 for a ticket which is more than double than she paid for Taylor Swift! Does it work then with Ticketmaster that the more people that are online trying to get tickets the more they cost? That seems very unfair.

But look at all the moaning when they tried to do something like this for Taylor Swift - parents buying for their kids, giving tickets as presents, genuine people who can’t go and can’t resell.