Expert Article

Survival of the Fittest: The Chaos of Concerts

How prices, pressure, and mind games have transformed concert culture.

You did it! You finally saved up enough money to afford a ticket to see the glittery, British icon Harry Styles. Better yet, you have saved enough to go after a general admission pit ticket, to see him up close. However, you seem to have been met with the impossible, beyond working to buy a ticket. Now you have to fight with every single fan to just enjoy the show. 

I have been in this exact spot. Saying the words Harry Styles around my father causes panic as it reminds him of the mania I caused with my dedication. While devotion has allowed me to see Styles in concert five times, it has shown how much effort I had to put into just having fun. 

We will be exploring every dynamic aspect of concert culture. Concerts should be about music; now it is about survival, fighting rising prices, camping for barricade, and doing it multiple times for the same show. 

Paying an arm and a leg for one admission 

Typically, seeing any artist in high demand comes with a large price, no ticket will be cheap due to dynamic pricing. Ticketing platforms adhere their prices to the amount of fighting people are willing to do for a ticket. 

 

More people engage because they want the honor to say they won the fight, as many end up losing this battle. With dynamic pricing, when 100,000 people are queued up online to buy a ticket, Ticketmaster hikes up those prices as much as they can. Only 20% of those people will be able to even make it through the paywall and many will barely be able to afford what Ticketmaster has decided to display. 

Ticketmaster’s monopoly has been widely recognized. The US Department of Justice is taking legal action to reshape pricing. “Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s Exclusionary Conduct and Dominance Across the Live Concert Ecosystem Harms Fans, Innovation, Artists, and Venues,” (US Department of Justice). While real time struggles are continuing, recognition in court in tackling one issue targeting concerts. 

Those who have the time to sit in a two-hour online queue and are able to afford dynamic pricing will be able to even checkout. Music critics recognize the shift occurring with live music as, “The anticipation of the event can be very potent, especially if one is going to hear an artist or ensemble one particularly admires,” (The Cross-Eyed Pianist).

For the many who lost the initial ticket release, secondhand resellers created new means of sale, at a much higher cost. Concerts have been selling out at high prices for decades, there has always been the option of bargaining with Joey1234 online. 

Online retailers have taken up the personas of Ticketmaster and other distributors. When there is record demand, with limited supply, every market has decided to adhere to the price ceiling, directly abusing the funds of concert-goers (Mello-Klein). They decided that no step of buying a ticket would be easy if you didn't win the first time.

Now you have to go through hundreds of scammers charging $1000+ for basic level tickets with a whole new warfare to go through.

• Ensuring the “proof” they send you of a ticket is even a real ticket

• If you speak to an actual person, you have to confirm they will not block you after you send them the money for the ticket. 

  
  

Sacrificing your bed for the barricade 

After fighting this hard for a ticket, you want to make the most of it and be as close as you can. The assumption is you can just show up an hour or two before doors open for the venue. It should be a crime how incorrect that is. 

The show is in a week and there are already 200 people sleeping and sitting on the sidewalk day and night to be one of the first people to walk through that door. What should you do?

Accept your fate of being in the back or do the camping journey on the sidewalk. Did you really earn your ticket if you let all these people see Styles at a better angle than you? After spending all that time, energy, and money, you must continue to make the most out of it all. 

Time to rummage through the garage for a tent, tell your professors you have the flu, and go sit there outside the arena until doors open for the show. 

Now you have to deal with the aggression and entitlement people have with getting into this show. You're sitting in your tent, people are formulating gameplans on what specific corner of the stage they are going to and the fast walking and elbowing they are preparing for. 

You are hearing your enemies plan their ambush heist.

Concerts were meant to be a time of celebration for the artists coming to serenade the room. In a timely moderation, camping can be rewarding for that view. However, the unethicality towards others overshadows it. Creating such hostility, (Hedge).  

The hostility extends farther than between concert-goers. Venues allowing for fan camping all while banning makeshift homeless shelters. “The Forum and SoFi Stadium have decided homeless communities cannot have their encampments across the street, yet privileged teenagers can call the venues home for days on end,” (Gonzales).  It seems like people are seeing this as a private concert that 20,000 other people, including homeless individuals, are interrupting. 

One and done or twenty and done?

The fight is over, one might presume. You ran, you elbowed, and you put up a fight to be as close to the barricade as you could. Physically it is over, psychologically it is just about to begin.

In the age of social media, we have access to seeing what everyone around us is doing. The internet showed us that Macy and her group are going to their fifth show, so suddenly now one show isn't enough. 

The pressure to prove we are real fans has made many feel like failures for only seeing him once. This obsession with proving we have the time, money, and stamina to see him live multiple times is clouding the joy of concerts. 

As humans, we love being number one, proving that we are the best at what we do, but we lose the fun. Now just being in the same room as Harry Styles has lost its appeal. Concert culture was not meant for this much endurance. We need stability to bring fun back. Until ticket prices are not exploited and fans do not resort to one upping each other, concerts will remain a financial and psychological battleground.

Work Cited

Hedge, Gracee “The Toxicity of Concert Camping.” Her Campus, 16 Nov. 2023, www.hercampus.com/school/ball-state/the-toxicity-of-concert-camping/.  

Gonzalez, Jaelyn. “‘Camping Culture’ Needs to End and Harry Styles Fans Are at Partial Fault.” Highlander, 2 Nov. 2022, www.highlandernews.org/85278/camping-culture-needs-to-end-and-harry-styles-fans-are-at-partial-fault/. 

Mello-Klein, Cody “What Is Dynamic Pricing and Why Is It Hiking Ticket Prices for Oasis, Taylor Swift and Your Favorite Artist?” Northeastern Global News, 2 Oct. 2024, news.northeastern.edu/2024/10/02/dynamic-pricing-ticketmaster-oasis-taylor-swift/.   

The Cross-Eyed Pianist. “Social Aspect of Concert Going.” The Cross-Eyed Pianist, 2 July 2018, crosseyedpianist.com/tag/social-aspect-of-concert-going/.  

“Justice Department Sues Live Nation-Ticketmaster for Monopolizing Markets across the Live Concert Industry.” Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department Sues Live Nation-Ticketmaster for Monopolizing Markets Across the Live Concert Industry | United States Department of Justice, 6 Feb. 2025, www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-live-nation-ticketmaster-monopolizing-markets-across-live-concert.