By Claire-Marie Scott | LTVN Managing Editor
It is not out of the ordinary for the public to have beef with Ticketmaster. From inflated ticket prices to website crashes and dealing with scalpers, it feels like every time an A-list artist goes on tour, they find themselves in hot water.
One major artist has taken proactive steps to help keep ticket sales reasonable and not in the hands of bots. Noah Kahan’s upcoming The Great Divide tour should set the blueprint for how all artists should work with Ticketmaster. His strategy makes the fans the priority, not a dollar sign.
According to the presale ticket information on Noah Kahan’s website, the tour will use Ticketmaster’s Face Value Exchange.
“Tickets will be non-transferable and can only be resold at face value on Ticketmaster,” The website reads. “In New York, Colorado, Illinois, and Utah, state laws don’t let artists fully control resale so tickets can be transferred. But even there, prices will remain at face value. Nothing is perfect, but we’re doing what we can to help protect against scalpers, and keep tickets in fans’ hands.”
Kahan’s dedication to keeping ticket prices at face value is truly admirable. This dedication shows he empathizes with his fans and wants to make sure that ticket cost isn’t as much of an issue for those who want to see him live. Additionally, I think this action helps showcase Kahan’s character and relatability, as he is aware that the music industry can be hard on the audience and is taking active steps to keep the tickets secure for his fans.
As a fan of Kahan, his words and actions only make me love him more. It eases my mind to know that people waiting in the Ticketmaster queue have a better chance of getting tickets at a reasonable price. It is defeating to wait in the Ticketmaster queue for so long only to get to a page with limited tickets that are either thousand-dollar floor seats or over $300 for nosebleeds.
Kahan’s new process starts at the presale sign-up step. According to NJ.com, “Noah Kahan and Ticketmaster also added that fans will be required to submit a selfie when signing up for presale or in a few cases, a photo ID.” I think this verification is a great measure to help keep the ticket-inflating bots off the website.
More artists need to take the same steps as Kahan. Recently, Harry Styles announced his Together, Together tour, which faced a lot of online backlash. Fans were complaining about the high ticket prices and the speed at which most tickets sold out.
According to ABC News, “Styles’ tour garnered 11.5 million total presale registrations, making it the largest volume ever for an artist presale.” For an individual with such a large fan base and so much excitement around his tour, it is disappointing to see that the fans are not the priority.
Artists need to take notes from Noah Kahan and change how they do ticket sales with Ticketmaster. Kahan’s changes, I believe, are going to revolutionize the ticketing industry, and I hope that changes like these ones can become something that isn’t special or a privilege, but something that is normal.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source baylorlariat.com ’
