Part 5/9:
Scalping: The Dark Side of Ticket Purchases
Scalping has become an industry in itself, leveraging technology to secure high-demand tickets with alarming speed. Ticketmaster, amid such frenzy, faced criticism and scrutiny for its role in facilitating these transactions. What went wrong? Swift's decision to impose price controls on her tickets inadvertently made them a lucrative target for scalpers.
With only 1.5 million premium seats priced at $450 for the tour—significantly below their actual market value—this created a profitable gap that scalpers exploited. Without dynamic pricing, which Ticketmaster advised her to implement, the demand for resale tickets surged, pushing their prices into the thousands.