Your favorite artist just released tickets for their new tour! You rush to buy a ticket to see them and are hit with the inevitable, dreadful process of ticket selling sites. First, you get in a 2-hour Ticketmaster queue and finally get in to see nosebleed tickets running for 200 dollars. You decide not to spend the money and try to find tickets the day of, in which you have to arrive at 3 am to secure a spot in line by the box office. You get a ticket eventually and next have to buy a new outfit because your current ones don’t match the artist’s “aesthetic”. Finally, you spend the rest of the day frantically listening to the setlist trying to get familiar with all the songs you don’t know. Does that even sound fun? Throughout recent years, concerts have been becoming more and more of a pain, and it’s gotten to the point that intervention is necessary before it gets worse.
It all started with the rise of Ticketmaster. The platform has full power to raise prices temporarily so that once you get through their labyrinth of a queue, you undoubtedly experience the feeling of adrenaline that convinces you to just spend the 300 on a ticket. Then a couple months later, other tickets come out on sites like StubHub and they will almost always have better seating at a lower price. But since Ticketmaster has become the main website to get tickets through, they have the power to monopolize and do whatever they want.
I believe these raised prices are the driving force of all of the other problems. The relief felt from getting a ticket quickly washes away by the need to find a better outfit than everyone else. I attended the Tyler the Creator concert in March and heard many other fans literally calling it a “fit-off”. I had just planned on wearing something casual but felt pressure to redo my outfit plans so I wouldn’t stand out as someone with bad taste. When the main purpose is to enjoy the music, why does it matter what everyone is wearing?
On top of that, the thing that has been annoying me the most is the idea that you’re considered a “fake fan” if you don’t know all the words. Why is it a thing to sing loudly at concerts anyway? The whole point is to hear an artist live, I can do karaoke anytime I want and would definitely be saving money in the meantime. But no, the day of the concert is often spent trying to memorize words from a verse of my least favorite song, so I don’t feel like I wasted my money by not being a big enough fan.
The new updates to concert culture have brought an overwhelming feeling of competitiveness to the scene and taken away from the main point of music, which is to escape from both personal and societal issues. Music and concerts shouldn’t emphasize economic issues and bring stress to people. As a society we should all revert back to the times when you could go listen to live music for an artist you enjoy and not be shamed for not being the artist’s #1 superfan.
