Headlines about outrageously priced concert tickets have dominated the music news cycle as of late, from the Taylor Swift Eras on-sale fiasco to $5,000 Bruce Springsteen tickets. This trend has justifiably led to a number of government actions including a DOJ antitrust investigation into Ticketmaster/Live Nation. It has also left fans wondering if they should shell out exorbitant sums to see their favorite artists perform or wait to see if prices go down closer to the day of show.
If the price of Bruce Springsteen tickets is any indication, it may pay to wait: Tickets to The Boss’s February 21st concert in Tulsa, OK have plummeted to less than $10 including fees in the days before the show.
Springsteen and Ticketmaster were criticized after tickets for his current tour reached over $5,000 due to Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing system, which adjusts the cost of so-called platinum tickets based on demand, often resulting in extremely high prices during high-demand on-sales. NJ Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr. even issued a statement demanding answers from Ticketmaster about the outrageous prices, and long-running Springsteen fan zine Backstreets made the decision to shutter operations after 43 years in publication, citing the fact that dynamic ticket pricing had priced out many fans from attending shows and made it economically unfeasible to cover the tour.
Less than a week before an upcoming show in Tulsa, OK, however, Bruce Springsteen tickets have dropped from over $1,000 to under $10 on the resale market. Tickets sold through Ticketmaster—which remember had reached $5,000 “based on demand”—have bottomed out at around $70 with fees, and they only remain that high due to a resale price floor implemented by Ticketmaster, which limits how low prices can get. Sites without imposed minimums such as StubHub had tickets available for about $7 with fees at publication time.
Similar resale price floors were once implemented by the NFL in its official ticket marketplace, which is powered by Ticketmaster, but were ultimately abandoned after scrutiny from multiple Attorneys General.
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“Resale price floors harm consumers twice over,” said John Breyault of the National Consumers League. “First, they keep discounted tickets from being available to fans who would otherwise be unable to attend a show. Second, they harm sellers who simply want to recoup at least a portion of their ticket investment when they are unable to attend an event. Fans should not be the ones to pay the price when Live Nation and its clients fail to anticipate lower-than-expected demand for an event.”
As frustrating as it is to see ticket prices drop by a factor of 1,000 after fans were forced to pay out the nose, the market’s sudden fall bodes well for concertgoers who are wondering whether or not prices for sold-out shows like Dead & Company‘s final summer tour and other high-demand performers will come down as the shows grow nearer. Though tickets might not reach $7, a little patience may pay off.