Taylor Swift is among those few singers who have made a mark in the music industry, known for her upbeat pop tracks and massively successful concerts. However, in the last couple of years, fans have been outraged by cheap shots and have criticized Taylor Swift for selling tickets for as much as $1,200 per seat via third parties. As a result, the following are some reasons why Taylor Swift tickets are expensive now:
Demand Outpaces Supply
First of all, Taylor Swift’s fans will be happy to watch her live performances; this can be an important factor. Her last tour was in 2018 based on the album Reputation and it boasted over 2 million ticket sales across the world. Nevertheless, on her tour route, Swift is usually performing only a couple of times per city. For instance, she could perform 2 nights at an arena with an approximate carrying capacity of sixty thousand people. This means over 100000 fans in that region battling for only 120000 tickets on average in major matches. The law of demand and supply, by definition, means that a situation where demand is high and supply is low will push prices up. People are willing to part with their hard-earned money due to the understanding that Taylor Swift tickets are likely to be out of stock in a short period.
Taylor Swift has a special set of fans, known as Swifties, and she appreciates these fans by allowing them to purchase tickets before everyone else. But when they do presales, they only make select tickets available, while creating a scarcity when the remaining tickets are released to the market. Presales, the other category of tickets, also falls prey to scalpers. Because of this, Swift manages the supply of tickets tight for resellers to purchase the best seats during pre-sales and then sell them at highly inflated prices on the secondary market.
These venues even have resale websites like StubHub where scalpers or any other fans can repost tickets for whatever amount they desire. Bots and other techniques also allow for the sale of large lots of seats at onsales, so that resellers can get their hands on blocks of seats to drive up the prices. The floor seating or VIP packages for Taylor Swift concerts normally cost this fee five to ten times more in resale markets. An audience that wants to get the best seats to a show is forced to spend a fortune on tickets that are then purchased from the original sellers and resold by the scalpers at inflated prices to fans. While Swift’s team attempts to curb such secondary market manipulation, it has not been successful in finding an answer.
However, Swift also offers classic chair-like concert seats, which are accompanied by pricey VIP packages that patrons can buy. These very limited packages cost $1,000+ per ticket and that further pushes the extremely high end of the price range. For fans of Swift, she includes both to appeal to loyalists and for the sake of revenue hikes. Other artists also employ such luxurious items. The packages give the illusion of what it looks like to be seated throughout the concert and even when they cost more than historical averages of concert tickets, the packages make the normal seated ticket prices seem relatively cheap.
Aside from market influences, Taylor Swift added to the excitement surrounding her latest tours, The girl took a three-year hiatus from touring after her 1989 album in 2015. That absence ensured that her fans were eagerly waiting for the next time she would be able to perform live. Tours and album releases were also cut short, with Reputation and Lover being released years apart and fans having to wait even longer for her concerts. They tend to go ballistic when Swift finally declares that she is going on tour and this translates to expensive tickets on the resale market.
Has Taylor Swift Become The Self-Serving Female Celebrity Who Wants An Outrageous Amount Of Money For Her Music?
Considering the above reasons for costly Taylor Swift tickets, some cannot help but wonder if Taylor Swift is taking advantage of her fans and extorting large amounts of money for her concerts. Forbes placed her 2018 Reputation Tour as the most lucrative of any artist in US history, making her a target of criticism over greed. However, Swift does not set prices on its own since various other market players influence the price-fixing process. Her management team involves itself in determining ticket prices and does so with the assistance of promoters and other entities in the concert industry, as well as factors such as inflation. He also has to deal with other expenses that are not directly visible to the fans, such as the costs of arenas and equipment.
However, many of the shows may be selling out well before base prices because of Swift’s pop superstar status and ability to consistently sell records. While reseller manipulation would still exist, further regulating the first tier of sales pricing would help provide better access to Swifties who are passionate about her music. In the long run, the market determines the dues that fans are willing to put on the table but Swift could find it useful to speak on behalf of her faithful fans.
This leads to the next question: will Taylor Swift continue to increase ticket prices for the next tours? An analysis of market trends reveals that there has been continued demand for Swift for up to 15 years of her career. However, Swift has made some of them that tend to work against high prices as well. Her ‘Erasure’s Tour in 2023’ is planned to be a record-breaking one with more than 70 performances. Should she maintain such touring frequency in the subsequent album release, the demand may be outstripped by supply. Swift also maintains the development of her fan communication and her overall reward system for loyalty, which may be detrimental for resellers. Nevertheless, as long as the oversized demand is still active and secondary markets are unblocked, the majority of Taylor Swift tours will continue to be charged higher prices shortly.
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