President Joe Biden appears to be joining the list of all the homies that hate Ticketmaster.
It’s no secret that the ticket market for sporting events and live concerts is somewhat (or all the way) corrupt. Those $45 tickets that you try to grab can quickly and almost always turn into $145 after all of the services fees and transaction fees are tacked on.
And lately, even the pre-sale ticket buying process has also been a disaster, with one of the more recent fiascos happening around Zach Bryan’s upcoming 2024 “Quittin’ Time” tour.
The man hates Ticketmaster so much that he legitimately named one of his albums All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster, but after trying out a different method to sell tickets last year (through AXS), the country star went back to selling through all sites, and it was a disaster to say the least.
It’s a very complicated issue, and in short, the problem is that ticket sales are intertwined with booking and management and venues and promoters, which we broke down in way more detail here.
What can consumers really do about it though? Boycotting ticket sales altogether and not attending concerts could be one way, though that in turn hurts the artists that we love and appreciate. There’s really not a great way to turn things around other than companies like Ticketmaster ceasing to be a**holes about it.
But I might have spoke too soon, because President Joe Biden decided to “enter the chat” and put out a post about the current state of the ticket selling market with a post on his X account yesterday (I’m still not used to calling it X instead of Twitter).
President Biden stated:
“Concert tickets are hard enough to get, you shouldn’t have to pay surprise service fees on top of that.
My Administration is working to crack down on those junk fees, so you know what you are paying for up front.”
Concert tickets are hard enough to get, you shouldn’t have to pay surprise service fees on top of that.
My Administration is working to crack down on those junk fees, so you know what you are paying for up front.
— President Biden (@POTUS) September 24, 2023
You know what… thanks for that Joe. Hopefully the “crack down” happens pretty quickly, and preferably before next year’s festival season gets into full swing.
As nice as the idea of the government stepping in to help solve the ticket price crisis sounds, people on social media weren’t afraid to criticize Biden’s post. I mean, the government seems more incompetent and inefficient than it has ever been…
But hey, we can’t fix the economy, crime, education, homelessness, student debt, the national debt, the border, the environment, social security and way, way more, so I guess we’re gonna tackle… Ticketmaster?
Here’s a quick look at the comments:
Thank you for working hard to reduce the price of Taylor Swift tickets from $1,147/each to $1,105/each.
— Chris Bakke (@ChrisJBakke) September 24, 2023
why don’t we focus on the cost of rent, gas & basic necessities that we NEED
— s h e n n a 💛✨🦋 (@shenna_brook) September 24, 2023
People can't afford groceries.
How are they going to afford concert tickets?
— Kasia Z. Zasada 🇺🇸🇵🇱 (@ZuzaZasada) September 24, 2023
Yea the concert ticket fee crisis is destroying families right now, thanks for taking a stand 🤣
— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) September 24, 2023
-Sky rocketing fentanyl deaths.
-Open borders.
-Inflation.
-High gas prices.
-Increased crime.
-Suppression of free speech.
-loss of individual liberties.
-increased suicide.
-home values tanking.
-savings accounts declining.
-Pending WWIII.And Biden wants to talk “ticket…
— Conservative Momma (@conmomma) September 24, 2023
Concert tickets? That’s Biden’s priority?
Americans can’t afford gas or groceries because of inflation.
Biden needs to work on making the necessities of life affordable.
People today can’t buy homes or even pay their rent.
Going to concerts is the last thing on their minds.
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) September 24, 2023
I legit thought this was a parody account. I’m worried about the absurd interest rate on my mortgage and the fact my groceries are 50 percent more than they were three years ago. I couldn’t care less about concert tickets
— Jenin Younes (former handle @leftylockdowns1) (@JeninYounesEsq) September 24, 2023
I wish the priority was lower taxes, inflation and public debt and not the price of Taylor Swift concert tickets.
— Emmanuel Rincón (@EmmaRincon) September 24, 2023
I’m glad to see you focusing on the issues that matter.
— GANDALF (@BTCGandalf) September 24, 2023
