When We Were Young Festival is a much-anticipated music festival featuring bands and artists that were popular in the 2000s emo and pop punk scene. With headliners like My Chemical Romance, Paramore, and Jimmy Eat World, When We Were Young has generated a lot of buzz and demand for tickets.
Festival Details
When We Were Young Festival is taking place in Las Vegas on October 22, 2023. The festival will happen during the daytime at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds. In addition to the headliners, the lineup includes big names like AFI, The Used, Bright Eyes, Avril Lavigne, Taking Back Sunday, Dashboard Confessional, Alkaline Trio, and many more. There will be four stages so attendees can see a variety of performances throughout the day.
Anticipation for When We Were Young
There was a ton of excitement and demand for When We Were Young tickets right when they went on sale. The festival caters directly to millennials who were fans of emo, punk, alternative, and Warped Tour bands in the 2000s. The chance to relive the nostalgia and see some of these bands perform live again has created enthusiasm in the target demographic.
My Chemical Romance announced their long-awaited reunion in 2019 and have not played a show in the United States since then. Their performance at When We Were Young will be a massive draw. Paramore is also hugely popular and hasn’t toured since 2018. The combination of these nostalgic headliners and other beloved bands from the 2000s punk/alternative scene has built substantial buzz for When We Were Young.
When Did Tickets Go on Sale?
The When We Were Young presale began on Friday, January 21, 2022 at 10:00 AM PT. The general onsale began shortly after at 2:00 PM PT on the same day. Tickets could be purchased on the festival’s website.
Presale Options
There were two presale options available:
- Artist Presale: This presale gave fans access to tickets before the general public if they signed up via selected artists’ email lists and fan clubs, like My Chemical Romance’s MCRmy fan club.
- Live Nation Presale: Fans could get access to the presale through Live Nation by signing up for an account in advance.
These presales helped die-hard fans get first access to tickets before the wider general onsale opened up. All remaining tickets then went on sale at 2:00 PM PT.
Ticket Prices
General admission tickets started at $224.99 plus fees for first-tier pricing. There were also VIP passes available starting at $419.99 plus fees. Table service packages were also offered starting at $999.99 plus fees per person.
Here is a breakdown of the ticket pricing tiers:
Ticket Type | Starting Price |
---|---|
General Admission | $224.99 |
VIP | $419.99 |
Table Service | $999.99 |
All tickets were subject to tiered demand-based pricing, so prices increased for each tier as tickets sold out. Loyalty presale buyers had access to the lowest ticket prices before demand drove costs up when the general onsale opened.
Sell Out Rate
When We Were Young tickets essentially sold out immediately during the presale and general onsale. The festival’s social media accounts reported that the event sold out in less than 60 minutes.
Fans experienced major technical issues with the website when trying to purchase tickets right at 10:00 AM PT and 2:00 PM PT. The ticketing platform was overwhelmed by the amount of traffic. Many people ran into errors trying to access tickets and had no luck securing them despite being on right away.
Demand Too High for Capacity
Demand drastically exceeded the festival’s capacity. Approximately 65,000 general admission tickets were sold, in addition to thousands of VIP/table service packages. The Las Vegas Festival Grounds can only hold about 40,000 guests. The number of tickets sold surpassed capacity by over 50%.
The festival organizer, Live Nation, later announced that they would be expanding the grounds and increasing the capacity so that all ticket holders could attend. They delayed announcing the additional capacity and logistics until the expanded capacity was confirmed.
BOTS and Resellers
Many fans accused ticket scalpers and bots of buying up all the inventory and reselling tickets at inflated prices. Tickets appeared on third-party seller sites like StubHub priced from $500 to as high as $12,000. The immediate sell out led to frustrations that tickets weren’t getting into real fans’ hands.
The festival tried to curb scalpers by requiring ticket buyers to register with their legal names and restricting ticket transfer options. However, critics said the efforts were insufficient and more could have been done to limit resellers.
Additional Dates Added
Due to the incredibly high demand and immediate sell out, When We Were Young announced additional festival dates one week after the initial onsale:
- Saturday, October 29, 2022
- Sunday, October 30, 2022
The same lineup will perform across all three festival dates. Presale registration for the new dates opened on January 28 at 10 AM PT. Tickets went on sale to the general public on February 4 at 2 PM PT.
Repeating Sales Issues
The two additional festival dates sold out rapidly again, repeating the same issues as the initial onsale:
- Website crashes and errors
- Immediate sell out within minutes
- Inflated resale prices
- Accusations of bots/scalpers buying tickets
Despite efforts to increase venue capacity and add more dates, demand still drastically exceeded supply available from the primary ticket seller.
Conclusion
When We Were Young attracted tremendous excitement right from the moment tickets went on sale. The presale and general onsale were flooded with fans vying for tickets, leading to a sell out in under 60 minutes. Demand exceeded capacity by over 50%, necessitating additional festival dates.
The phenomenally rapid sell out rate signifies the nostalgic excitement and interest in the festival’s early 2000s pop punk/emo lineup. Insufficient ticketing platform infrastructure and potential scalpers led to a scramble for tickets, though the organizer tried adding capacity and second weekend dates. When We Were Young’s ticket saga highlights the devotion of fans to relive these bands and the era’s music.