The secret behind why your concert ticket was more expensive than the person sitting beside you
Posted Sep 18, 2018 6:27 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO – Imagine finding out people just 16 seats away from you paid about hundreds of dollars less for a ticket to see your favourite performer.
The wild swing in the price for concert tickets is being put under the microscope in Toronto.
The Toronto Star and the CBC did a seven-month investigation into ticket prices, examining this Saturday’s Bruno Mars concert at Scotiabank Arena. After monitoring online seat sales for the concert between February and September, reporters watched the number of available seats and their prices change.
Seats that just seem to appear, are known as hold-backs and they compare it to security staff keeping a long line of partygoers outside a club create the illusion of popularity. A professional ticket broker says Ticketmaster does this for most shows and it seems to be a standard practice
The end result: if a fan only sees a couple of seats available they’ll jump on them no matter the cost.
