Photo Credit: Muneeb Syed
Following the disastrous pre-sale of Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras’ tour tickets, the Ticketmaster website crashed. Now the ticketing company is guiding Beyonce fans through a staggered release to avoid the same thing happening again.
Last week, Ticketmaster announced demand for Beyonce’s ‘Renaissance’ world tour exceeded available tickets by more than 800%. But fans aren’t having any trouble securing tickets thanks to some changes Ticketmaster has made to the sale process.
Ticketmaster staggered the availability of tickets across several release dates for one. Fans who signed up to be alerted to ticket availability through Ticketmaster, Verizon, or Citi were emailed an access code that made the process of securing tickets a much more streamlined process. While the tickets are easy to buy—they still don’t come cheap.
“If you still have a chance to get tickets, this is how much you need to be prepared to spend,” says one fan on TikTok. She shares that she spent $6,000 on securing tickets. “We had no choice. But I have to say I’ve been preparing for this moment ever since the Renaissance album came out.”
Digital Music News reported on tickets as high as $4,000 for a single ticket on Friday. But prices are changing rapidly thanks to Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model. “I saw there was one set of seats available for $400,” says one fan. “When I clicked on them again, not like two minutes later, they were priced at $1,100 and I have no idea why.”
Many fans who have secured tickets have shared the price they paid online, with fans complaining about the dynamic pricing model. Some people were able to secure tickets for $300 a person–not counting Ticketmaster’s often exorbitant fees. One factor that can drive up dynamic pricing? If lots of people are on the Ticketmaster website viewing ticket prices at the same time. The more people who are clicking on seats to view prices, the higher those prices will go.
Ticketmaster is facing scrutiny from lawmakers over its monopoly on live ticketing for Live Nation venues. Live Nation says the staggered ticket sales were done in response to how the Taylor Swift ‘Eras’ tour sales went. Pre-sale for Beyonce tickets is divided into three groups of cities–Group A, B, and C. Each of these groups is then split further into pre-sale categories. They include a Verified Fan pre-sale for fan club members, a Citi Verified Fan sale for cardholders, and the General Verified Fan sale availability.