Fans frustrated as Beyonce’s tour ticket prices plummet after purchase

INGLEWOOD – Ms Tanaka Paschal was thrilled to be taking her son to Beyonce’s final Southern California show on her Cowboy Carter Tour in May. They had missed the Renaissance World Tour in 2023 – tickets had sold out so fast, some fans ventured overseas to catch a gig.

“I thought I was not going to be able to see her, so I jumped on it,” she said.

Ms Paschal, 43, bought a pair of floor seats for about US$900 (S$1,170) total, but like many others, she soon had a bit of buyer’s remorse. In the weeks that followed, she saw the price for similar seats drop by hundreds of dollars, then increase, then drop again.

“It’s frustrating,” she said. “The next time, I’m going to wait until the day of.”

When tickets for big summer tours by acts like Lady Gaga, the Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar and SZA go on sale, the prevailing wisdom is to move fast during one of the pre-sales offered by artistes and credit card companies or risk getting shut out.

Most, if not all, tickets are usually snatched up immediately, with prime seats popping up on resale platforms like StubHub or Ticketmaster’s own secondary market at inflated prices. (Fans hoping to see American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour famously did not even get a shot at the general on-sale: All the tickets were long gone.)

But things have been different for Beyonce’s tour this time supporting her Grammy Album of the Year-winning Cowboy Carter (2024).

Tickets moved during the pre-sales, but a glance at the seat maps on Ticketmaster’s pages later revealed not only a lot of pink dots indicating resale tickets, but plenty of blue dots representing available seats that had gone unpurchased too. And those prices were notably changing.

The complaints have piled up in news articles and on various social media platforms. Tickets in the 200s section purchased for US$700 at first, then US$200 weeks later; a seat nabbed for US$1,300 that dropped to US$800; tickets priced at US$380, later priced at half that.

“Beehive pre-sale was a scam,” said Ms Rosalyn Davis, 31, of Los Angeles, referring to early availability for fan club members. She bought her ticket for US$541, but saw the same seats for US$330 a few weeks ago.

In interviews, concertgoers shuffling into SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, like Ms Davis recalled – often with horror – waiting in a pre-sale queue and watching prices wildly fluctuate in real time. Or briefly breathing a brief sigh of relief when they secured tickets, only to witness the value of their investment plummet.

“I’ve got to a point that I’m no longer going to compete in a pre-sale,” said Ms Annie Rodriguez, who paid around US$860 for her ticket (seats around hers fell as low as US$500). “As a fan who is signing up for the pre-sale so that you can guarantee a seat, you’re hoping that the artiste will be kind to their true fans.”

Ms Rodriguez is a veteran concertgoer, and spread out the blame.

She cited “dynamic pricing” – face values that change based on demand, which has led to US$5,000 Bruce Springsteen tickets and a lot of irked fans.

Oasis said it was unaware dynamic pricing was being used for their anticipated reunion tour on-sale in September 2024, where fans groused about carts that doubled in price. Ticketmaster denied dynamic pricing was at play.

Representatives for Beyonce, Ticketmaster and concert promoter Live Nation did not respond to requests for comment about the Cowboy Carter pricing.

But fans have been quick to blame the two companies, whose merger came under additional scrutiny by federal lawmakers following the Swift debacle in 2023.

In May 2024, the Justice Department sued Live Nation Entertainment, asking a court to break up the company over claims it illegally maintains a monopoly in the live entertainment industry.

Fans are less wont to point the finger at their favourite artistes. “I don’t speak ill of the queen,” Ms Rodriguez said. The ecstatic fans streaming into SoFi were largely outfitted in their Cowboy Carter finest: glittery cowboy hats, bejewelled denim and sashes.

StubHub and ticket seller SeatGeek both said average ticket prices for the Cowboy Carter Tour are down from the Renaissance World Tour, but perhaps not as much as people perceive. (An Instagram ad for SeatGeek touted Beyonce tickets at “Up to 30 per cent off” on April 29, with the fine print adding, “Ticket prices set by the seller.”)

Billboard reported this week that the star’s five SoFi dates across April 28 to May 9 grossed US$55.7 million off sales of 217,000 tickets.

The average price of tickets sold to the Cowboy Carter Tour for all stops on StubHub is about US$295, down only slightly from US$320 for Renaissance. SeatGeek said its average price for the latest tour was down about 15 per cent compared with Renaissance.

The price drops tend to be more stark in markets where a performer is playing multiple shows. The average cost of a ticket in Los Angeles was US$195, StubHub said, with a “get in” figure of about US$50. In Northwest Stadium near Washington, where she has two concerts scheduled in July, SeatGeek said the average resale ticket price is much higher – around US$443.

“Broadly speaking, pricing concert tickets is extremely difficult, much more so I would say than sports, and especially before the on-sale,” said Mr Chris Leyden, director of category marketing at SeatGeek, which, in addition to selling tickets on the secondary market, serves at the primary seller for venues like Northwest Stadium. NYTIMES