Taylor Swift is playing her last US shows on her Eras Tour in LA this month and as you can imagine there is an unprecedented demand for tickets.
For those who missed out during the chaotic Ticketmaster US ticket sales back in January, fans remain determined to hear the popstar's biggest hits and are attempting to bag last-minute tickets for the sold-out shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
Originally, face-value tickets sold for $49 to $449, but according to the LA Times, tickets for the first show were on sale from $800 to a whopping $11,000 each on StubHub.
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As the first show is due to take place tomorrow (August 3), tickets are continuing to rocket in price with the most expensive listing currently being priced at $25,677 for floor seats while a Level 1 suite is $102,070.
Swifties have since been taking to social media to share their tips on how to secure face-value tickets on Ticketmaster which occasionally releases tickets last minute.
@joecurtainshow to get eras tour tickets day of for face value on ticketmaster: aka what I did to score floor seats only 2 hours before the show started. hoping this finds the right audience so fans can get in and beat the scalpers #taylorswift #erastour #swifttok #taylorsversion #tserastour #tickets #ticketmaster #erastourphilly #guide #howto #fyp #fypシ @Taylor Swift
So who's in charge of the ticket prices?
Well, there are a number of different factors at play.
Promotors are the ones who officially set the prices and get money from ticket sales, but given it's Taylor Swift we're talking about she would also have a hand in choosing the venues and informing the promotor where to set prices.
Venues charge a facility fee for hosting the concert and are paid by the promoters for this role, some venues have exclusive deals with certain promoters while others do not.
And then there are the ticket companies like Ticketmaster who sell tickets with dynamic pricing where the price of a ticket changes according to demand - a move that has received criticism (though artists can opt out of this, as Swift did).
On top of this, there is also the service fee for buying the ticket online, a processing fee that "covers miscellaneous expenses associated with online ticketing", and a facility charge for the venue to host the shows.
According to Ticketmaster, input is given by the artist on the service fee and facility charge.
Finally, there are the resellers who purchase tickets with no intention to attend the show but rather buy tickets to turn a profit by making listings on marketplaces like StubHub and SeatGeek.
Prices can shoot up as there are no limits as to what the seller can charge.
“This is a truly market-driven platform,” StubHub spokesperson Jessica Finn told LA Times.
“So this is really about what sellers think that the price, the value of the ticket is, and what buyers think the value of the ticket is, and they effectively agree on it with a purchase... It’s very much a dynamic marketplace, prices go up and down and we don’t meddle with that.”
A team of people or software bots can be used by the reseller to nab batches of tickets - hence why Swift decided for her UK tour to do album order presales, get fans to sign up for the general sale, and have staggered ticket sales throughout the day to try and stop bots and resellers.
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