Blink-182 recently announced their reunion with frontman and founding member Tom DeLonge. They’ve recorded a new album, and will be embarking on a world tour next year. But things are not all sunshine and roses in Blink-182 land.
Ticketmaster is starting to launch ticket presales for the band’s world tour, and the monolithic event ticketing empire is taking full advantage of the hype surrounding DeLonge’s return. For those who don’t know, Ticketmaster has a little thing they call “dynamic ticket pricing”. Basically what that means is the list price of event tickets can fluctuate quite rapidly based on the current demand for those tickets. Supply and demand, baby!
In situations like this one – Blink-182 announcing a world tour the same day they end their seven year breakup with Tom DeLonge – the demand, and in turn the fluctuations in prices for tickets can be quite drastic. Fans hoping to attend the tour have taken to social media to voice their outrage with this dynamic pricing model. Many claim the price for tickets they selected jumped significantly even as they added them to their cart. Fans are paying anywhere from a few hundred dollars to over $1,000 for tickets to see Blink-182. And bear in mind folks, these are not resale prices. These are tickets being sold by Ticketmaster.
With all that said, I do not think artists like Blink-182 should be absolved of any guilt in this dynamic pricing model. After all, they directly benefit from these sky high ticket prices, and according to Inside Hook, artists can opt out of dynamic pricing altogether. But it seems that, for some, the incentive is too great. And being able to hide behind the big bad boogeyman known as Ticketmaster certainly makes it easier to protect your brand while exploiting your eager fans’ FOMO. That’s capitalism, folks! Enjoy the Blink-182 show.
Realmusic
You forgot to mention the Blink 182 sucks with or without Tom.