This is an opinion piece.
Over the past two decades, the ticket-buying experience has transformed from a fan-driven scramble into a high-stakes, algorithmic marketplace dominated by Ticketmaster. Today, it’s a blood sport fought with algorithms, artificial scarcity, and corporate collusion.
The recent chaos surrounding Rush’s reunion tour ticket sales has many fans pointing fingers not just at scalpers, but at the machine behind them, Ticketmaster. And strangely enough, Taylor Swift might be at the center of it all.
In the early 2000s, scalping was a techie’s hustle. Independent resellers developed software to beat Ticketmaster’s captchas and flood the site with automated requests. If you were quick, and lucky, you could still grab seats through persistence or even by calling Ticketmaster directly.
“I used to get tickets over the phone when everyone else was fighting online,” recalls one longtime concertgoer.
When Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation in 2010, it created an empire. Live Nation controlled the artists, the tours, and the venues. Ticketmaster controlled the box office. Together, they became gatekeepers for nearly every major show in North America.
At the same time, Ticketmaster eliminated phone orders and cracked down on multi-window purchases, forcing scalpers to evolve. That’s when professional resellers started building powerful software systems capable of bypassing new restrictions—and when Ticketmaster quietly began finding ways to profit from their existence.
Between 2010 and 2015, StubHub, SeatGeek, and Vivid Seats turned reselling into an industry. Once considered a shady side hustle, ticket reselling became a legitimate business—with Ticketmaster itself quietly partnering with major brokers.
“Only if you knew someone could you buy at scale,” says one insider. “And Ticketmaster needed the secondary market—they made money through fees no matter who sold the ticket.”
Around 2015, Ticketmaster unveiled a new system: “Platinum” tickets. In real time, prices for high-demand seats would surge based on demand—essentially a legal form of scalping, except this time the extra money went straight to Ticketmaster and the artist.
“Platinum” seats allowed Ticketmaster to skim profits that used to go to resellers. Bands and venues, who got a cut, went along. And since Live Nation owned most large venues, artists had no alternative.
When the pandemic hit, tours were canceled en masse. Ticketmaster came under fire for withholding refunds, blaming “postponements” instead of outright cancellations. Many fans lost hundreds of dollars. Customer support centers were gutted, and the company’s image took another hit.
Taylor Swift Effect
Then came the Eras Tour. The demand for Taylor Swift tickets was so extreme it crashed Ticketmaster’s system. Millions of fans—many of them now lawyers, tech professionals, and politicians—got a firsthand look at the chaos and manipulation behind modern ticketing.
Ticketmaster’s latest move is psychological. Fans are shown messages like “Another fan just bought these tickets” or “Someone beat you to it,” a manipulation tactic designed to create urgency and drive buyers toward higher-priced “Platinum” listings. After public outrage, the most blatant version of this feature was quietly removed.
However, the larger scheme remains. Multiple “presales,” exclusive access tiers, and strategically withheld tickets create an auction-like frenzy. Shows appear to “sell out” instantly, only for Ticketmaster to release a wave of “limited tickets” weeks or months later.
The goal is to create artificial scarcity. By holding back inventory, Ticketmaster pushes fans toward overpriced options early, then undercuts the resale market later by reintroducing tickets at face value.
For fans, the best strategy might be patience. “Don’t buy Platinum or resale seats right away,” warns one seasoned buyer. “Let them sit. Prices often drop closer to the show.” With most concerts booked months—sometimes a year—in advance, there’s time for the market to correct itself.
Ticketmaster has turned ticketing into a science of scarcity and psychology. With Live Nation’s dominance, most artists have no alternative but to play the game. But for fans, awareness is power. Knowing how the system works—and resisting the pressure to overpay—might be the only way left to win.
