It doesn't take long to detect echoes of disappointment in Rosalía's subreddit, with fan after fan desperate to see her upcoming world tour talking about how difficult it has been to get tickets.
According to several reports, tickets for concerts in cities such as London, Barcelona, Toronto and Mexico City sold out within minutes of general sale.
“I'm so shocked at how quickly the Toronto tickets sold out. I was line number 352 this morning and when they let me in there were almost no tickets left for sale,” one Reddit user said on the Rosalía subreddit.
Rosalia's album LUX was an instant success, and legendary composer Andrew Lloyd Webber even declared it “the album of the decade.” The 33-year-old Barcelona resident is undoubtedly famous: he has almost 30 million followers on Instagram. However, it's a far cry from Taylor Swift's 281 million followers and the buzz that accompanied her Eras tour. By comparison, Olivia Dean has about 3.4 million followers and her arena tour also sold out.
Most people are familiar with the pain associated with purchasing tickets to high-profile events. Tickets at face value can be expensive, even if they are available at all. And often, tickets sell out quickly and then end up on resale sites where they are sold at exorbitant prices. It's also difficult to tell how tickets are split between pre-sale and general sales, making purchasing tickets a time-consuming and confusing process, multiple fans told CBC News.
But experts say there are ways to fight back – especially as fans and artists grow dissatisfied with the system – from strengthening price controls to diversifying the market for venues and ticket sellers.
Tens of thousands of Hilary Duff fans are vying for tickets to her new intimate tour. McGill University associate professor Vivek Astwansh says the ability to go to concerts has diminished due to a combination of Ticketmaster creating higher demand and brokers buying tickets in bulk using bots.
Veronica Ing, a 32-year-old Toronto resident, said she went to several concerts every year. “Now I can do one – maybe – and sometimes zero,” Ing told CBC News. “Concert goers are rebelling against scarcity and fomo.”
Her friend, Angie Liu, said she felt she “overpaid” for Kendrick Lamar and Sa's Grand National tour. “Getting the tickets was a stressful experience,” Liu said. She added that dynamic pricing, which sets prices based on demand, also makes costs unstable.
“The experience goes to the highest bidder, which makes it fundamentally unaffordable,” Vass Bednar, managing director of Canada's SHIELD Institute, told CBC News.
So what do you need to do to make events accessible? Experts say it's difficult, but there are policy options that could lead to change.
“There are two problems that we all face,” Bednar said. “One is how quickly so many tickets are taken out of the primary ticket market and how difficult it is to obtain a primary ticket. Then there is the resale market that preys on our loyalty and affinity.”
Ali Ditner is a big fan of K-Pop, especially Stray Kids, and says buying tickets to their concerts is “crazy.”
“Fans who don't have that kind of disposable income can't attend a concert, and it's not a lack of seats — there are enough,” Ditner said, adding that she noticed rows of empty seats at sold-out shows, many of which may have been hoarded by scalpers.
Legislation “worth a try”
Bednar says there are two policy levers that could help Canadians: “Restricting or restricting resale so you can only sell the ticket at face value. More anti-scalping legislation.”
“This is not a Canadian problem,” Bednar said. “This is a global problem.”
The UK government recently passed legislation that prohibits the resale of tickets for more than their original face value. Big names such as Dua Lipa, Coldplay and Radiohead have previously called on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to crack down on resellers.
According to University of Alberta associate professor Brian Fateau, an expert in popular music and media studies, people can find ways to circumvent the law and exploit fans.
Still, he says the legislation is “worth a try.”
Some Taylor Swift fans are still refreshing resale sites in hopes of snagging a ticket as the singer kicks off the Canadian leg of her tour in Toronto. Kenton Lowe, dean of BCIT's School of Business and Media, told BC Today host Michelle Eliot that this is an “event of a lifetime” for fans and they will be willing to pay a high price.
“Through a lot of the research we're doing, we're getting back to a bigger issue: the very little competition in the music industry.”
Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation enjoy the lion's share of influence over the live music business, which spans venues, ticketing and touring. As a result, Fato said, regulating the ticket office is only part of the story.
“Few players control how things work,” he said. “How do we build and support a wider range of venues and music infrastructure?”
Attempts at change
There have been attempts. In the UK, for example, the government has supported a voluntary fee of one pound ($1.84 Canadian) for tickets to shows at stadiums and arenas with a capacity of 5,000 people or more. This money is funneled into smaller mainstream venues that host smaller shows.
The famous Royal Albert Hall announced his plan introduce a small fee in July, but many large venues have not yet contributed – and it is possible that they will not, as it is not mandatory.
And while options are limited, fans can sometimes take advantage of an alternative. ticket platforms. On the Rosalía subreddit, fans chose whether to buy from AXS or Ticketmaster based on prices, availability and wait times. In some cases, fans can purchase tickets directly from the venue, such as Massey Hall in Toronto.
The situation, which many experts call a monopoly, makes change difficult. Improvement will likely require a combination of government policy and resistance from established artists and fans.
“It's not up to us to decide what's happening more and more that is an abuse of market power, but I think the more people can recognize it — and have a vocabulary around it — it's going to be really powerful,” Bednar said.
Ticketmaster vowed suppression of large speculators who are buying tickets using hundreds, if not thousands, of fake accounts after the US Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit in September naming Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
“This has gotten out of control, especially since scalpers developed automated tools to create Ticketmaster accounts,” Live Nation wrote to US lawmakers at the time. “Given the level of abuse we are now seeing, we will not allow this to happen again.”
However, skepticism remains. A previous CBC/Toronto Star investigation cited in the FTC lawsuit found that Ticketmaster previously made significant profits from scalping.
Artist-led activities
Meanwhile, many artists took matters into their own hands.
Olivia Dean recently criticized Ticketmaster and Live Nation for their “vile” resale market.
Ultimately, Dean's decision to speak out resulted in Ticketmaster partially refunding fans who paid inflated prices to resell tickets and imposing resale restrictions.
“We share Olivia's desire to keep live music accessible and provide fans with better access to affordable tickets,” Michael Rapino, CEO of Live Nation Entertainment, told CBC News at the time in a company statement. “While we cannot require other marketplaces to respect artists' resale preferences, we echo Olivia's call to 'Do Better' and have taken steps to lead by example.”
Live Nation and Ticketmaster will cap resale prices and give partial refunds to some fans after British singer Olivia Dean alleged costly resale of tickets for her tour. This comes as proposed legislation in the UK would restrict the resale of tickets for more than face value.
Dean isn't the only example of an artist fighting back, giving hope to fans like Liu and Ing. Hayley Williams recently tried to get ahead of scalpers by implementing a pre-sale ticket plan that included verification steps and made it harder for big scalpers to buy tickets.
She also set resale parameters.
Liu bought tickets to Williams' upcoming show in Toronto and said it went surprisingly smoothly — much better than her experience with Kendrick and Soy.
“I had about 400 people in line, and then it went pretty quickly and the prices were pretty good,” Liu said, noting that a one-way ticket cost less than $100.
“I actually don’t understand how she unilaterally kept the price so low,” Liu said. “I thought, 'Okay, if they can do it, what's stopping any other artist from doing it?'
