Famous Ticketing Scandals
Taylor Swift
When Taylor Swift announced her Eras Tour in 2022, no one expected scandal to follow. During the presale, Ticketmaster was overwhelmed by over 3.5 billion system requests, resulting in long queues, tickets vanishing from carts, and eventually a total website crash. 2.4 million tickets were sold, but Ticketmaster later announced that they were cancelling the general sale because of “insufficient remaining ticket inventory" (Olufidipe, n.d.).
Image taken from PopWow.
Fans expressed their outrage, as they were left with no way to purchase tickets except through resellers charging thousands. This debacle revealed many of Ticketmaster’s questionable practices and sparked widespread lawsuits and investigations to occur.
Image taken from UMass Dartmouth Student Newspaper.
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen faced similar backlash after Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing caused extreme surges for his 2023 tour.
Fans were shocked to see that tickets were listed up to $5,000 a seat, as Springsteen had a reputation for affordable shows.
Both the singer and Ticketmaster released statements defending the prices, leaving many defeated fans who accepted that expensive tickets were the new norm.
Image taken from Rolling Stone. Image taken from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Harry Styles
Harry Styles’ 2026 “Together, Together” tour is a recent example of this issue. Those who managed to make the presale were placed in queues with more than 100,000 others, waiting hours just to find some of the cheapest tickets costing over $1,000.
Image taken from BBC.
Styles received intense criticism online, with many arguing that his shows aren’t worth that price. Still, some fans turned to resellers to secure seats, but unfortunately, many of them were victims of scammers and scalpers.
Image taken from The Today Show.
Create Your Own Website With Webador