Ticketmaster’s monopoly needs to stop

For many, attending a concert and getting to see your favorite artist live is something that rarely falls short of a great experience. However, the process of purchasing tickets to these high-demand shows through Ticketmaster has become a disaster. 

My experiences with Ticketmaster in the past two months have been disappointing and it keeps getting progressively worse. From the war waged trying to get Taylor Swift tickets to her “Eras” tour to my most recent frustration of Morgan Wallen’s “One Night Only” tour, it is safe to say that I am finished dealing with this multi-billion dollar corporation. 

In 2010, Ticketmaster and Live Nation merged, which has been a horrible experience for consumers. It is frustrating to music fans and, most importantly, robs them of their hard-earned money. 

However, prior to this year, I’ve never had an issue with the company. I’ve always been able to log on to their website, pick a concert and purchase tickets. That has all changed. Due to high demand for certain shows, Ticketmaster has created a new “lottery” system. 

You begin by registering for tickets with your email then you wait to find out if you’ve been picked to purchase tickets. I have had my fair share of frustrations with this lottery system. 

Prior to this year, their lottery presale was just an opportunity to access tickets first, rather than waiting for the general sale. That was great, but instead of a general sale, Ticketmaster has started using a lottery system for all ticket sales. For popular artists, there are no more general sale, which means if you don’t get lucky and get sent a presale code, you don’t go to the show.

My frustrations lie in the fact that Ticketmaster is the only reliable vendor available for tickets. Other sites—  such as Vivid Seats and Stub Hub—offer tickets, but the prices are jacked up and unaffordable. These are tickets that are purchased from Ticketmaster then resold on these sites on whatever price they demand. 

This does not mean the prices on Ticketmaster are great, either; if you want a good seat, it’s going to cost you. It’s upsetting to see Ticketmaster tear apart the music industry and scalp consumers of their money, and I don’t see it stopping here. 

For example,  a few weeks ago, Morgan Wallen announced he was going to be touring in 2023. I attended his 2021 show and had no issues with receiving tickets. However, Morgan Wallen has become extremely popular this past year so I knew it was going to be difficult. 

I was then waitlisted to purchase these tickets (as I had been for Taylor Swift previously). Luckily, some of my family members received a code so I had a second chance at scoring these tickets. So the day of the presale I went on the site and typed in the code.

These tickets were NOT cheap, costing over $700 for two tickets. However, they give you a time limit to check out, and after I thought I would be able to buy tickets, I could not. After entering my information and proceeding to checkout, the site timed out. 

However, they still charged my credit card over $700, but I didn’t get the tickets due to a site error. 

The next day, I went back to the site and tried again. Every time I would try and enter the card information it would give me the same message. “Oops! Your payment could not be authorized. Please check your card information or try another card.”  

Eventually I gave up, not realizing that the card had been charged six times. There was more $3,000 charged , and still no tickets. 

Needless to say, I will not be purchasing from Ticketmaster again.