{"id":172234,"date":"2026-02-20T01:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/172234\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T01:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:29:13","slug":"ticketmasters-pricing-model-frustrates-student-concertgoers-the-prospector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/172234\/","title":{"rendered":"Ticketmaster\u2019s pricing model frustrates student concertgoers \u2013 The Prospector"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s\u00a0no surprise that\u00a0Ticketmaster is the number one ticketing website<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0purchase\u00a0concert tickets, due to their partnership with Live Nation. That should be reliable, right? Well\u2026 sometimes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

With\u00a0major\u00a0artists going on tour this year\u00a0including\u00a0BTS, Olivia Dean, Ariana Grande, Rosal\u00eda,\u00a0and Harry Styles to name a few, some fans of theirs have been facing problems and issues with how their concert tickets have been distributed, including myself.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I love concerts.\u00a0My\u00a0first\u00a0was Tyler\u00a0the\u00a0Creator in\u00a0El Paso.\u00a0Since then,\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0seen\u00a0most of\u00a0my favorite artists such as Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, Beyonc\u00e9, Ethel Cain, Harry Styles\u00a0and Taylor Swift.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recently, I was\u00a0able to\u00a0secure\u00a0Harry Styles tickets for this year at Madison Square Garden, but it was not easy at all. But,\u00a0one of my closest friends had access to\u00a0get me\u00a0tickets before I had a chance in the queue\u00a0(thank you Bri!).I had tried to get tickets multiple times before that, with the queue line\u00a0exceeding the\u00a0actual capacity of the venue, or when I made it in, the cheapest ticket was only about $1000.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

And\u00a0I\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0the only person who had recently experienced this situation with Ticketmaster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) junior\u00a0Grecia Ortega\u00a0described her\u00a0attempt to\u00a0buy\u00a0BTS tickets for the Sun Bowl.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo,\u00a0I got floor\u00a0[tickets], I got\u00a0VIP, and it\u00a0was\u00a0almost $800.\u00a0And then like lower seated were like 700 something,\u201d\u00a0Ortega said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked\u00a0whether\u00a0dynamic pricing\u00a0affected\u00a0her purchase,\u00a0Ortega\u00a0said she\u00a0believed\u00a0so.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMost definitely,\u201d Ortega said.\u00a0\u201cBecause when I bought tickets on\u00a0floor\u00a0for Coldplay,\u00a0they\u00a0were 90\u00a0bucks.\u00a0So\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0like a 700% increase,\u00a0basically like\u00a0800%.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dynamic\u00a0pricing\u00a0presents a budgeting challenge for many college\u00a0students, which is something that has usually stopped me from going to concerts sometimes. But it also makes the consumer find it harder to manage spending not for the concert ticket, but for traveling as well.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

UTEP\u00a0freshman\u00a0Yvette Gomez\u00a0said fluctuating\u00a0prices\u00a0have made her\u00a0reconsider attending concerts altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0been crazy right now\u00a0being a full-time student and having a full-time job. My pricing range is not the best,\u201d\u00a0Gomez said.\u00a0\u201cI feel like people are going to want to\u00a0go less to concerts because of that.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u00a0hasn\u2019t\u00a0just\u00a0been\u00a0dynamic pricing that has halted people from going to concerts though, another opposition being resellers, gaining access to tickets first then reselling them at a much higher price.\u00a0There\u00a0had\u00a0recently been controversy with\u00a0Ariana Grande\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0concert tickets facing this situation,\u00a0as well\u00a0as\u00a0Olivia Dean<\/a>.\u00a0Both artists have taken matters into their own hands with their teams, making sure that the tickets have been refunded for the price of face value, or that they are taken from the resellers, and are put back on sale for face value.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

UTEP junior\u00a0Jovanna Palacios\u00a0supports these efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0actually good,\u00a0because a lot of resellers,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0so crazy how much\u00a0they\u2019ll\u00a0upsell it for,\u201d\u00a0Palacios said. \u201cAnd I think\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0something that a lot of artists should do.\u00a0Like with\u00a0Olivia\u00a0Dean\u00a0not even making reselling\u00a0an option\u00a0helps so much and making the tickets affordable. Because at the end of the day, like music,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0better when\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0live and\u00a0money\u00a0shouldn\u2019t\u00a0be such a big\u00a0barrier to it, and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0unnecessary.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, concerts\u00a0shouldn\u2019t be this difficult to\u00a0be able to afford.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0become a problem to the point that sometimes consumers will go out of their way to end up paying for that expensive ticket just to go to the concert. Believe me, I did it for Beyonc\u00e9. And I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0regret it\u2026 when I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0think about how I much I spent.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, a message to Ticketmaster\u00a0and\u00a0artists\u2019 teams, please spare us college students by making tickets more affordable. Concerts should create fun memories and experiences, not having to complain about how much those tickets\u00a0cost.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Aziel Ramos is a contributor and may be reached at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s\u00a0no surprise that\u00a0Ticketmaster is the number one ticketing website\u00a0to\u00a0purchase\u00a0concert tickets, due to their partnership with Live Nation. That…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-172234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}