Another day, another concert tour that fans are saying is ruined by Live Nation Entertainment.
Tickets just went on sale for Lady Gaga’s highly anticipated The MAYHEM Ball tour, and the prices (and price gouging) are sending Little Monsters everywhere into meltdown mode.
Just a few years ago, concert ticket prices were reasonable. But now, thanks to Ticketmaster’s (a subsidiary of Live Nation) use of dynamic pricing, a system that allows companies to raise prices in real-time based on demand, bots, fraudsters, and resellers, ticket prices are astronomical, costing fans more than just a pretty penny.
In 2023, Taylor Swift’s Eras tour tickets could reach anywhere from $11,000 to $22,500. The BeyHive didn’t fare much better, with Beyoncé‘s Renaissance tour tickets costing fans tens of thousands of dollars as well. And that’s not even including the hundreds of dollars of fees ticketing companies put on top of the already shockingly expensive price for their seats.
Now, it’s Little Monsters’ time to empty out their wallets and fork over thousands of dollars to see their beloved pop diva perform all their favorite songs from her new album, Mayhem.
And let’s just say they aren’t happy about it.
“Who is the C*O of Ticketmaster?” one outraged Little Monster asked on X, posting an image of Gaga from her “Abracadabra” shoot, where she is holding a gun out to the camera.
One fan posted a picture of the ticket prices for Gaga’s Aug. 23 Madison Square Garden performance in New York, and they were already up to $1,770 dollars without fees.
And the tidal wave of anger from Little Monsters continued.
With an increasingly harsh economy, it can feel like a slap in the face for singers and venues to expect fans to drop thousands of dollars on a single ticket like they did in the past. The sky-high prices are now even forcing some to walk away altogether, unable to justify the cost of the tickets, even if it means missing out on the chance to see their beloved icons perform.
In Beyoncé’s case, her Cowboy Carter tour is experiencing this in real-time, with the tour’s ticket sales much lower than projected. According to NewsNation, Beyoncé has yet to sell out most of her shows, albeit her venues are huge, but still.
Due to her tour’s smaller venues, Gaga seems to be escaping the same fate as Beyoncé in terms of ticket sales, but that doesn’t mean fans aren’t annoyed, with most of their ire directed towards Ticketmaster and its dynamic pricing system.
Clearly, concert pricing is overdue for reform. Who knows when that will happen. Until then, Little Monsters must choose between seeing Gaga live or paying rent.
