Springsteen's 'dynamic' ticket prices just the latest twist in Ticketmaster saga

If you've been to even a single concert in the last few decades, you've probably spent some time trying to answer one question: "How does Ticketmaster get away with charging so much?"

While  that question stretches nearly as far back as the establishment of the ticket seller, it recently centred around around blue-collar hero Bruce Springsteen. Two weeks ago, after spending hours waiting in a digital line to get tickets for his upcoming North American tour, many fans of the Boss came face to face with all that was left: "dynamic price" tickets — which shift up and down based on demand — going for as much as $5,000 US, with all of the more modestly priced face-value tickets long gone.

And Springsteen fans are far from alone there. Back in 2018, Taylor Swift fans complained when tickets swung as high as $1,500 US, with many fans complaining they weren't even allowed into the program that would have let them buy more modestly priced tickets in the presale. 

Looking to earlier this year, Harry Styles's regularly priced $200 tickets shot up to over $1,000 at his tour's only Canadian stop — prompting some fans to start a petition pleading for cheaper options. Meanwhile, just last month, tickets to Drake's OVO Fest sold out almost instantly, with "lawn" seating at Toronto's Budweiser Stage — far from where the rapper would be performing — listed at $900.

But despite the recent examples, it's the Springsteen debacle that reignited a decades-old battle between Ticketmaster and concert-goers. Upset over its market dominance and lack of transparency, those fans are demanding to know the reasoning behind the ticket giant's seemingly nonsensical prices.

Given a closer look, that confusion is nothing new — it's just a symptom of a monopolistic industry and the complicated nature of ticket-selling.

Back in 1994, alt-rock group Pearl Jam was one of the first to go toe to toe with the ticketing platform. After trying — and failing — to enforce a maximum $1.80 US service fee with Ticketmaster on their $18 tickets, the band complained to the U.S. Justice Department, saying the company broke antitrust laws, used its monopoly to charge exorbitant fees and later pushed event organizers into refusing artists access to other venues.

"It is well known in our industry that some portion of the service charges Ticketmaster collects on its sale of tickets is distributed back to the promoters and the venues," Pearl Jam guitarist and lyricist Stone Gossard said before a congressional subcommittee in 1994. "It is this incestuous relationship, and the lack of any national competition for Ticketmaster, that has created the situation we're dealing with today."

Yet after a year-long investigation, the Justice Department abruptly dropped the case, with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno citing "new enterprises" entering the ticketing industry. For his part, Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder had a more pessimistic reaction, telling fans at a subsequent show he "hate[d] to think it's the wave of the future — corporate giants that can't be toppled."

And since then, the world of ticket sales has only become more complicated — and expensive.

For starters, there have been increasing service charges and fees added to the price of tickets, while Ticketmaster has frequently lobbied against transparency laws that would require them to explain these extra costs to buyers.

But at the same time, how we see — and value — live music has also changed.

In a 2011 interview, ex-Ticketmaster CEO Fred Rosen explained that as the internet became a central part of people's lives, the amount and speed at which brokers could sell tickets exploded. That, combined with a number of industry changes that forced artists to rely on live music far more than record sales, transformed concerts into the expensive industry they are today.

"It used to be you made the record, and toured to support the record," said Rosen, who left the company in 1998. "Now… you tour to make money, because pricing caught up with value and the albums don't sell on the same level."