ticketmaster wars are making casual concert going a lost art

and it's an absolute travesty

Gone are the days of buying tickets to a show because you like one or two of the artists songs and had nothing better to do on a friday night. Concerts are now for hyper-dedicated super fans only. And that’s a damn shame.

The process of ticket buying has become an impenetrable barrier - signing up for presale up to a week before, getting in the digital waiting room for 30 minutes, usually in the middle of a work day, waiting up to an hour, battling bots, and still probably not securing tickets.

My first full time job in music was in concerts, and I’ve found many of my favorite artists from stumbling upon their shows. But with the process of buying tickets more hectic than ever, concerts are no longer an accessible channel of fan discovery. If you’ve made it past the “buying tickets” phase, you’re probably somewhere in that artist’s top listeners already.

I got Rauw Alejandro tickets nearly same day in May of 2025, and by December he was in my Top 5 artists on Spotify. In that audience, a fan was made. But with most concerts today selling out within minutes, from artists like Monaleo doing 2,000 capacity rooms, to Bad Bunny’s entire world tour filling 20,000 capacity arenas, casually obtaining tickets for anyone is a near impossible, or at the very least an annoying, feat.

So, what are we going to do about it? I sure wish I knew. Will there be a new ticketing platform that emerges, offering fans and artist teams a new method of ticket selling that fixes this issue, or at least eases the burden on fans? With all of the technological advancements we’re making it would be a surprise if one can’t emerge.

What I do know is that casual concert going as a form of artist discovery is a crucial part of the music industry. It’s a crucial part of the artist’s journey and the potential expansion of their world. We don’t need artists selling any less tickets, as streaming becomes less lucrative every day, but we do need to make the process of buying tickets more democratized.