High Demand and Limited Supply
The main reason Taylor Swift tickets are being sold for over $1,000 is due to basic economics – high demand and limited supply. Taylor Swift is one of the most popular artists in the world and has millions of devoted fans. However, the venues she plays at only hold a limited number of people. For example, Chicago’s Soldier Field where she will be performing can hold around 60,000 fans. But if there are 600,000 fans in the Chicago area who want to see her, only a small fraction will be able to get tickets. This creates a situation where demand far outweighs supply, which causes prices to skyrocket on secondary ticket markets.
Swift’s Popularity Continues to Grow
Taylor Swift burst onto the music scene as a country artist with her 2006 self-titled debut album. However, over the years she has expanded her sound and audience. Her shift into pop music began with her 2014 album “1989” and her popularity has only grown since then. Her most recent album “Reputation” was released in 2017 and became the best selling album of that year in the US. She’s also continued to break records and make history, including becoming the first female artist to have four albums sell over 1 million copies in their debut week. As she headlines massive tours and breaks sales records, demand from her ever-growing fan base also keeps going up.
Limited Tour Dates and Venues
Swift is selective about which cities she plays and how many shows she will do in each place. On her current “Reputation” tour she is playing a total of 38 concerts in North America. Most tour stops are limited to 2-3 nights in major cities. For example, she played 2 nights in Chicago, 3 nights at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, and 2 nights in many other cities. Playing a handful of shows in venues that seat 50,000-60,000 means hundreds of thousands of fans in each city are left wanting. This imbalance between the number of Swift fans and the number of available tickets drives up resale prices.
Swift’s Album Release Strategy
Swift has consistently created hype and demand around her album releases and tours by making them exclusive events. For her 2017 album “Reputation” she kept things under wraps until announcing the album less than 3 months before its release. By keeping details scarce until the last minute, she built anticipation among her fans. This approach extended to her tour announcement, which came a month after the album release. The limited time window between the tour announcement and ticket sales added to the frenzy of demand as millions of fans scrambled for tickets all at once.
Growth of the Secondary Ticket Market
While Ticketmaster is the authorized vendor for Taylor Swift tickets, the secondary ticket market has grown enormously over the past decade thanks to sites like StubHub and Vivid Seats. These resale platforms make it easy for anyone sitting on extra tickets to sell them for inflated prices. Ticket scalpers and other opportunists can scoop up tickets and then immediately list them for resale at a markup. Fans desperately seeking tickets will shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars to secure a seat. This secondary market exploitation further drives up prices.
Wealthy Fans and “Sugar Daddies”
There are dedicated super fans as well as wealthy individuals willing to pay obscene amounts to have the experience of seeing Taylor Swift live. Celebrities and other elite fans have paid between $10,000-$50,000 for premium concert experiences and packages for Swift’s shows. There are also sugar daddies and wealthy older men buying up tickets as part of their lavish spoiling of young women companions. When money is no object, these fans and sugar daddies will pay any price to secure Taylor Swift tickets, further inflating prices.
Lack of Price Limits
Unlike some artists that place price ceilings on tickets or limit resale amounts, there are no such limits on Swift’s tickets. The lack of regulation around pricing allows tickets to be marked up without limits. Ticket brokers and scalpers can buy up inventory and then leverage the supply shortage to charge ten times or more the face value. Die-hard Swift fans are often willing to pay the outrageous premiums, which leads to tickets selling for $1,000 or more.
Average Ticket Prices for Taylor Swift’s Reputation Tour
City | Venue | Average Price |
---|---|---|
Arlington, TX | AT&T Stadium | $565 |
Chicago, IL | Soldier Field | $606 |
Manchester, NH | Gillette Stadium | $425 |
Pasadena, CA | Rose Bowl | $527 |
Conclusion
In summary, Taylor Swift tickets routinely sell for over $1,000 due to the massive demand to see one of the world’s most popular artists in concert. With a devoted fanbase willing to pay prices inflated by secondary ticket markets and opportunistic scalpers, price gouging runs rampant. Short tour dates in large venues, surprise album releases building hype, and lack of pricing regulations further drive up the resale value. Given Swift’s star power, the situation is unlikely to change anytime soon. Fans wanting to see her live will need to be prepared to shell out well beyond face value to secure tickets.