The Ticketmaster app has a reputation for being buggy, slow, and frustrating for users trying to purchase event tickets. While the app offers convenience by allowing you to buy tickets on your phone, many customers report a less-than-smooth experience. Common issues include errors during checkout, lagging load times, unintuitive interface design, and problems with notifications and updates.
Frequent crashing and other technical issues
One of the most common complaints about the Ticketmaster app is that it frequently crashes, freezes, or fails to load. Users report the app freezing during critical moments like selecting seats or finalizing checkout. The app seems prone to technical glitches that prevent completing ticket purchases. Nothing is more frustrating than getting through a virtual queue and ticket selection only to have the app crash before checkout.
Beyond outright crashing, customers cite other technical issues like error messages popping up randomly, features not working properly, and difficulty accessing their ticket library. The app sometimes fails to update ticket availability or prices in real-time as well. Basically, many users get the impression that the app is poorly programmed and not rigorously tested for bugs and performance issues.
Painfully slow loading and response times
In addition to crashing, the Ticketmaster app is painfully slow at almost every stage of the ticket buying process. Navigating between screens, searching event listings, selecting seats, and completing checkout can sometimes take minutes due to lagging load times. If you’re trying to quickly purchase hot-selling tickets, slow performance puts you at a huge disadvantage. And in general, no one wants to spend their time staring at loading icons.
Common culprits for slow performance seem to be pages with interactive seat maps, which can take ages to load. Checkout pages also seem poorly optimized, with users reporting lag times of 30 seconds or more when trying to finish ticket purchases. For an app designed for time-sensitive transactions like buying event tickets, the poor response times are unacceptable.
Unintuitive and frustrating interface design
The Ticketmaster app seems to suffer from subpar interface design that makes ticket buying more difficult than it should be. Many users report confusing navigation flows, oddly placed buttons and menus, and difficult-to-locate options. Trying to access your ticket library or ticket transfer options requires clicking through too many menus.
Searching for events and selecting seat locations also feels unintuitive, with confusing layouts and ticket views. The app hides too many options under hamburger menus instead of providing clear calls-to-action. Too often users have to poke around trying to find the option they need. For new users especially, the app does a poor job anticipating what users want to do and making it easy.
Problems with notifications and updates
Users cite issues with the Ticketmaster app related to notifications and updating ticket availability. Many customers complain that they don’t receive notifications they should, for example updates on presales or newly available tickets. The app also seems to do a poor job surfacing already purchased tickets and related info like electronic receipts. Users are also frustrated when ticket availability fails to update in real-time.
Getting timely notifications is crucial for hot shows where tickets sell out quickly. And accessing ticketing info easily post-purchase is also essential. But the Ticketmaster app falls short on both fronts, leading to missed opportunities and confusion around ticket status. The app seems to drop the ball on key notifications and updates users have come to expect when buying event tickets.
Failure to save user data and settings
One common gripe involves the Ticketmaster app failing to save user data and settings between sessions. Information like payment methods, mailing addresses, and notifications preferences needs to be re-entered frequently. The app also fails to remember user interface choices like default ticket views. This can be a headache, especially for frequent Ticketmaster users who rely on saved data.
Having to continually re-enter payment card numbers and other info adds friction and wastes valuable time during checkout. It also means users miss out on useful features like saved addresses for rapid checkout. And resetting notification preferences means potentially missing out on presales or newly available tickets. The lack of persistent user data undermines the entire point of an account-based ticketing app.
Poor customer service and communication
Ticketmaster as a company has something of a poor reputation when it comes to customer service. But service issues extend to the Ticketmaster app as well. Customers cite problems getting support for app issues in a timely manner. Trying to get an explanations or refunds for glitches takes forever. Even on social media, the Ticketmaster customer service presence is lacking.
Beyond customer support, the app itself does a poor job of communicating issues and explanations when things go wrong. Error messages are vague, and there’s little effort to message customers proactively about app issues. Overall, the app team does not seem very responsive or accountable to customers who run into problems trying to use the mobile app.
Frequent app updates with unexplained changes
Ticketmaster seems to push app updates quite frequently. But these updates often contain unexplained UI changes and removed functionality that confuses users. With no changelog or communication around updates, customers are left baffled by changes. The updates also tend to introduce fresh bugs due to lack of testing.
Frequent updates are not an issue alone, but the lack of transparency and communication means well-intentioned improvements end up harming the user experience. Customers get understandably frustrated having to re-learn the interface with each update. And new bugs diminish trust in the app overall. More open communication around updates would go a long way.
Billing and fee issues
As with Ticketmaster.com, users report a variety of issues related to fees, billing, and price transparency when using the app. Hidden fees that only appear at checkout result in sticker shock. Mismatched price listings and final charged amounts damage trust in the app. And complex behind-the-scenes pricing algorithms confuse users.
While fee and billing complaints are not unique to the app, they compound existing technical issues. Even if the app performed flawlessly, opaque pricing and fees would still be a turn-off for many customers. And when prices change or spike during checkout due to lagging load times, the billing process becomes even more distasteful.
Subpar quality on Android vs iPhone
By many accounts, the Ticketmaster app for Android phones and tablets lags well behind its iOS counterpart in terms of performance and polish. Android users are more likely to face crashes, laggy load times, and bugs. It seems development and QA testing resources go much more heavily toward improving the iOS experience.
With Android making up a massive mobile marketshare globally, Ticketmaster does itself no favors by neglecting app quality on Android devices. Customers should enjoy a smooth ticketing experience regardless of operating system. But at present, Android users seem treated like second-class citizens.
Lack of key features expected of a mobile app
Looking at the Ticketmaster app versus other mobile ticketing apps, it’s lacking some expected and useful features. For one, there is no integration with mobile wallets for rapid digital ticket access. Some form of ticket transfer functionality to friends would also be useful. Beyond tickets, many users expect chatbots, AR/VR, or maps for easier event navigation.
While Ticketmaster certainly has other priorities, the app lacks innovation customers expect from a modern mobile experience. Useful new features could offset other technical shortcomings, while also keeping pace with competitors. But the app’s core functionality has remained stagnant for some time.
Too many redirects to mobile web
When using the Ticketmaster app, customers report frequent redirects and links out to Ticketmaster.com displayed within an in-app browser. These web views feel disjointed from the native app experience, and are often painfully sluggish. Too often customers get stuck in desktop-optimized pages never intended for mobile screens.
Common redirect triggers include maps/directions, detailed event info, seat charts, FAQs, and certain billing pages. The prevalence of web views makes the app feel like an afterthought compared to the main Ticketmaster website. Customers expect a seamless native app experience—not just a wrapper for the mobile web.
Account management and login headaches
For an app aiming to provide personalized service to customers, Ticketmaster makes account management unnecessarily complex. Creating an account requires entering info not needed for ticket purchases. And users report constant login requests and session timeouts requiring reentering passwords.
User accounts should make the buying experience smoother, not act as a speed bump. But complicated account setup and excessive login requests slow things down. Syncing across devices is unreliable as well. Overall, the account infrastructure seems to cause more frustration than it solves.