Fans of the seminal pop-punk trio Blink-182 were thrilled for a new tour after founding member Tom Delonge rejoined. However, Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model cut that excitement short for many. According to Loudwire, the cheapest tickets for Blink’s upcoming Madison Square Garden show cost around $500. At this point, it’s clear that the Ticketmaster dynamic pricing model is taking advantage of your nostalgia.
Ticketmaster dynamic pricing is supposed to stop scalpers, not join them.
Supposedly, Ticketmaster introduced a dynamic pricing algorithm to dissuade scalpers from buying tickets in bulk and reselling them to fans. However, in practice, it just jacks up ticket costs so that fans have to pay resale prices, or more, anyway. For example, over the summer Ticketmaster and its dynamic pricing model came under fire for overpriced Bruce Springsteen tickets. Fans of the Boss found tickets for $4,000, though, after the backlash, average prices came down to around $200.
At publication, the cheapest tickets for Blink’s show at the world’s most famous arena cost about $230 on Ticketmaster. In comparison, the cheapest tickets for the Madison Square Garden show are about $180 on Stubhub. Though it’s still far more expensive than My Chemical Romance’s reunion tour, which was about $75 for nose bleeds.
The thing is, the inflated prices came before the general public could even buy tickets. Ticketmaster dynamic pricing jacked up the ticket cost during the presale, to which only a select few fans had access.
Taking advantage of 2000s pop punk nostalgia
Blink-182 dominated the charts in the early-to-mid-2000s. And thanks to musical acts like Machine Gun Kelly and Olivia Rodrigo, the sub-genre is experiencing a renaissance. According to Billboard, the aforementioned My Chemical Romance reunion tour drew a whopping $60 million.
And the upcoming When We Were Young festival, which MCR is headlining, sold about 185,000 tickets. However, there was significant skepticism about the event upon its announcement. Blink-182 will headline the festival’s sophomore edition in 2023. Of note, Live Nation, which controversially merged with Ticketmaster in 2009, is presenting When We Were Young fest. The fiasco surrounding overpriced Blink-182 tickets has renewed calls for an antitrust probe by the Department of Justice.
