When Katy Mae Turner bought tickets for the first show of the Cowboy Carter tour of Beyoncé, she did not expect the biggest surprise of the night to occur out of the stage.
Turner, 22, had paid $ 250 for his ticket for the concert on Monday evening at the Sofi stadium outside Los Angeles. It was a lot of money, she said, but the trouble to see one of her favorite artists live in a three-hour production.
The woman next to her paid even more. “It was so crazy,” said Turner. “She paid $ 777 and she was sitting directly next to me. I couldn’t believe it. ”
His neighbor was one of the many fans who bought tickets during the presale Cowboy Carter, when the interest among Beyoncé superfans increased and dynamic prices sent prices through the roof. Many are now frustrated to see that tickets are still available for less than $ 50.
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The Cowboy Carter Tour, which follows the release of the Country album of Beyoncé, a grammy winner, is expected to generate $ 294 million in income with the sale of 1.2 million tickets in 29 cities. He was compared to the Eras tour of Taylor Swift, which sold in a few hours and caused a drop in ticketmaster.
Cowboy Carter won the album of the year at the Grammy Awards in February
Some believe that the Cowboy Carter The album itself is to blame for slow ticket sales. While the criticisms loved – including Will Hodgkinson of Times, who described it as “smooth and starry Western epic” – the country is not the genre that made Beyoncé a megastar.
“”Cowboy Carter is a country, which for many people is very touched, “said Turner.” (Beyoncé) even said: “It’s not a tour of the countryside, it’s a tour of Beyoncé.” “
What is more likely is that the high prices have pushed the hardcore fans like Turner. “I said to myself:” absolutely not “, there is no way I can afford to pay this and still work,” she said. “I love Beyoncé but I also like to be able to pay my rent.” She ended up buying cheaper tickets a few weeks after the presale.
A ticketmaster check, the official seller of Beyoncé tour tickets, about five hours before her second show in Los Angeles revealed that there were still a large amount of available tickets. On Stubhub, the best American tickets of ticket networks, more than 2,000 were available for as little as $ 49.
An hour before the show, prices for the cheapest resale tickets had dropped $ 25 on Ticketmaster and $ 34 on Stubhub. The most expensive seats at the front were still $ 1,000.
Unsold seats at the Sofi stadium
SPLASH
A lack of regulation on ticket networks in the United States means that prices are based solely on supply and demand. The system has inevitably attracted touts, which resell more than 100 tickets per year for a profit.
Adam Webb, the campaign director of the Fanfair Alliance, a British organization that campaigns against the benefit of ticket resales, said that “the total lack of regulatory and ordering on the American market” was “a total mess”, which led to “a more secondary charge than you would do in the United Kingdom”.
In Great Britain, resellers are prevented from listing tickets on Ticketmaster for more than nominal value, while in Ireland, it is illegal to sell them over the price originally. In the United States, artists can ask Ticketmaster to demand networks at its nominal value. The rock group Pearl Jam did it for their current tour – but Beyoncé did not do it.
Ticketmaster seems to have dropped the prices of Beyoncé’s shows, because interests culminated in the presale. This can be seen most clearly during its six London shows at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The first, on June 5, unsold tickets in a house pâté at the rear go for £ 181. In the same row, the resale tickets go for £ 325 – probably because they were bought earlier, when prices were higher.
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Brandon, a 22 -year -old man who did not want to disclose his last name, has managed an online Beyoncé fans account for almost ten years and paid £ 858 for a VIP ticket in London. He said it was “boring” that tickets are cheaper now than in the presale – but he still thinks that the price he paid was worth it. He even plans to buy another cheaper ticket for another London show.
The performance of Los Angeles on April 29
Julian Dakdouk / Rex
Paul Poulos Jr, 28, is not as understanding. When he joined the queue for one of the five New Jersey shows during the presale, the only available seats were so -called nose bleeding – the highest and most distant seats from a stadium – for at least $ 280. Now, tickets for the same show start at $ 82, and prices seem to continue to drop.
“I was shocked,” said Poulos. “I thought there was an error in the price and I realized that everything that Ticketmaster did and I was extremely upset.” When he tried to go to better seats, he was told that it was impossible … because the other tickets were $ 20 cheaper than he paid at the start.
“They must take responsibility and cease to invoice more money to fans than the nominal ticket value,” he said. “Tickets should have a price set from the day of the presale. Stop keeping them hostage from the fans.”
Ticketmaster, his parent company Live Nation Entertainment and Beyoncé representatives were contacted for comments.
