By Erin Walker, Staff Writer

Many people have been criticizing the steep increase in Ticketmaster’s prices amidst Harry Styles’ presale for his upcoming tour this fall. 

According to pricefx.com, Ticketmaster’s prices are based on historical sales data, number of seats available, seating segmentation and competitor prices. Price adjustments for each concert are also made based on changing demand for the artist.

Ticketmaster is the official platform used for the sale of pre-sale tickets for Styles like many other well-known artists such as Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Bad Bunny and Billie Eilish.

First-year criminal justice major Nola Banks reported having joined the pre-sale queue for Styles’ upcoming tour with around 11,000 people in front of her, only to get in with the arena sold-out besides a few seats selling for around $800 to $900. Madison Square Garden is reported to seat around 20,000 for concerts. Banks eventually ended up with a seat in the nosebleeds priced at $350 after completing another round of pre-sale.

Banks has used Ticketmaster to purchase tickets for various artists, but has only noticed a drastic rise in prices for largely known artists like Styles. She has been to two other Styles concerts with tickets purchased through Ticketmaster and shared that those tickets were considerably cheaper than the ones she just purchased.

“I could have gone to three different concerts instead of one (with that money),” Banks said. 

“I think it’s insane how they are doing pre-sale because it’s 25,000 people in one pre-sale at one time,” first-year philosophy and English major Lily Dean said. “I also think it’s ridiculous that the AMEX users get an even earlier pre-sale because that makes (tickets) even more unattainable.”

Dean believes that recent ticket prices are so high because Ticketmaster and other management companies can charge whatever they want for these tickets because they are in high demand and people will still buy them. 

Ticketmaster claims its queue is not used to make buying tickets harder but to apply advanced security measures in order to block bots and monitor traffic, improving guest experience. However, Ticketmaster also lets fans know that tickets come on a first come first serve basis and are not always guaranteed. 

As for the complaint on high prices and unnecessary fees, Ticketmaster identifies these as service fees. These service fees are used to pay out venues that are hosting events along with the ticketing services that are used. Ticketmaster does not set service charges; these are set by the venues. 

According to Ticketmaster, the average primary ticketing company is making about 2% of the average ticket price. 

With rising stars like Noah Kahan and Olivia Dean announcing upcoming tours, this issue will remain a topic of conversation.