For her new sophomore album, Olivia Rodrigo is ready to ‘spill her guts’ during her Guts World Tour. But with Ticketmaster’s history of crashing during high-demand ticket sales, fans are prepared to battle to see the star perform live.
Ticketmaster hosted their official presale on September 21st, and some American Express cardholders gained early access to a code on September 20th that would allow them into the presale queue. Although American Express sent out only enough codes to meet demand, the problems, like long queues, didn’t stop there.
Being one of the registered fans for tickets, an anonymous high school sophomore from North Allegheny Intermediate High School shares their experience trying to acquire tickets to Rodrigo’s World Tour. “Unfortunately I was not able to acquire tickets. Presale is basically sale because those are the only tickets that are going to be left. I was 2000 in the queue and the only tickets left were $800 each. I only waited for fifteen, twenty minutes before I left because I was so far back in the queue.”
Presale is basically sale because those are the only tickets that are going to be left.
Fans reported wait times on the Ticketmaster website ranging from 45 minutes all the way up to 2 hours long. Another fan concern includes ticket prices, with Ticketmaster’s original price range of $49 to $199 becoming hard to come by for buyers. With people spending over $900 for the “Vampire” star’s tour, Ticketmaster’s reliability is in question for guaranteed and affordable pricing.
To meet high demand and unattainable pricing, Rodrigo added 20 additional dates to her tour, including two new dates for New York City plus some more for Los Angeles. Also, she included chances for fans to acquire limited $20 tickets to make her tour more affordable. Yet, these attempts to make the tour easier to access for all of Rodrigo’s fans haven’t been successful. In a social media post by Ticketmaster, they state, “There are still far more registered fans than tickets available.”
The pricing, high demand, and determination of the fanbase to obtain tickets is known “All Too Well” by Swifties during Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour presale. During the tour’s initial presale on Ticketmaster, the site crashed due to overwhelming demand. A local Swiftie and sophomore from North Allegheny Intermediate High School, Sahashra Pinnoji was able to acquire a presale code, but didn’t use it since the tickets “were too expensive.”
Luckily, Ticketmaster pulled through for Taylor Swift fans, giving an opportunity to get tickets through a raffle instead. “If someone got a presale code but they weren’t able to buy tickets, they sent out an email saying they could enter in a raffle with Ticketmaster.” Pinnoji was one of the few people who were picked in the raffle, allowing her to obtain “two tickets for $109 each.” Yet, Ticketmaster’s deceiving prices didn’t prepare her for the added fees and taxes, making her pay “$356 total with fees,” for both tickets.
When selling tickets for bigger artists, Ticketmaster’s high demand, long queues, and increased pricing make their tickets harder to come by. As Olivia Rodrigo’s career and fan base grow, the more difficult her tours will be to attend, much like Taylor Swift’s Era’s Tour. When trying to buy tickets for her next tour, fans should probably “be faster when trying to get tickets because they know how it works,” a NAI sophomore student stated. Ticketmaster needs to improve their ticket-buying experience if they don’t want another fiasco.
