When done well, dynamic pricing adapts to consumers; when done poorly it is seen as taking advantage of them. Yet, it is important to bear in mind that the consumer is never truly captive. If a price is too high, because demand is too great or supply is too scarce, consumers are not forced to buy. For this reason, businesses should take care regarding consumer interests, and charge what they can when they can.
Ticketmaster has the right to charge what it wants, as it has assumed the rights to the seats at the venue where Taylor Swift performs. And Swifties have the right to refuse purchasing those seats if the show is not worth it to them. Moreover, Taylor Swift has the right to establish her own ticket distribution system if she is unhappy with Ticketmaster’s functionality as an intermediary between her shows and her fanbase.
Over 14 million users flocked to Ticketmaster’s website to make a purchase during the pre-sale release and, according to Ticketmaster, to meet that level of demand “Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing)…that’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years.”
It seems it is not Ticketmaster pushing up prices, but rather fans’ demand.
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