For fans of Taylor Swift, attending her Eras Tour is a dream come true â if they can afford it.
With her Miami concerts â â sold out months in advance, ticket prices have not gone lower than $1000 on reseller websites such as StubHub and VividSeats. In fact, resale prices have soared. And as they rise, many fans are left wondering whether live entertainment is still accessible or has become more of a luxury.
âI remember knowing from the beginning that getting tickets was going to be hard because the process to sign up for the presale code took longer than expected,â recalls Lucia Vega-Tortolero, 22, a Swiftie who tried to score tickets for the Atlanta dates on the first leg of the Eras Tour. âThere was even a queue just to register for the presale. I was lucky to get a presale code a few weeks later, but Iâll never forget the ticket-buying process â it was like nothing I had ever seen before.â
Vega-Tortolero explains how the presale queue moved painfully slowly, with her waiting for over five hours before finally securing two tickets. âI grabbed the first two tickets I could get, even though they were nosebleeds. I didnât care,â she says. âThey were $100 each, which is amazing compared to the $1,000 minimum resale price you see now.â
This presale process is meant to offer fans early access to tickets, but for high-demand shows like Swiftâs, presales often sell out quickly, leaving fans who missed out scrambling to buy from resellers. Unfortunately, many resellers use bots or multiple accounts to snatch up tickets, only to mark them up by hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
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The presale process is designed to offer loyal fans early access to the sale. However, tickets often sell out during these presales for a high-demand show like Swiftâs. Many fans sign up for presale codes through Ticketmaster or Live Nation, hoping to secure their spot. Yet, the selection process for presale codes is not as easy as many might think.
Codes are randomly sent out, leaving many die-hard fans out in the cold, while resellers, often using bots or multiple accounts, manage to infiltrate these presales. This issue has been widely criticized, leading to investigations into Ticketmaster and Live Nationâs practices.
Pollstar, a trade publication that tracks the global concert industry, that the average ticket price from last yearâs top 100 tours topped $122.84, a 17% increase over the previous year and 31% higher compared with the average price in 2018.
The situation surrounding ticket sales has drawn the attention of top federal officials, including the Justice Department, which sued Ticketmaster and its parent company last May, accusing them of ârunning an illegal monopoly over live events in America and asking a court to break up the system that squelches competition and drives up prices for fans,â .
âWe allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,â said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a after filing the lawsuit. âThe result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing services. It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster.â
Swift the Ticketmaster debacle through her Instagram stories back in 2023 expressing her frustration: âIâm not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.â Her comments highlight the struggles many fans face and the disappointment surrounding the ticket-buying process.
Many fans are left to wonder why Taylor Swift tickets are so expensive and whether they are worth the high price.
âI went to her Tampa show and had an amazing time,â said Sofia Zuniga, 22, of Miami. âBut I did spend a lot of money that weekend.â Zuniga reminisces about her time at the Eras Tour in Tampa back in April 2023.
At that time, there werenât any Miami shows announced, leaving fans, like Zuniga, throughout the state to travel to Tampa for what they thought would be their only chance to experience the live show.
âIâm super grateful, but I did end up spending over $548 on a ticket, $96 on an AirBnB, $58 on bus tickets, and more money on an outfit and food,â shared Zuniga. âI would definitely not splurge again.â
Later in 2023, Swift announced the last leg of the Eras Tour starting in October 2024 with three nights at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. Similar to Zuniga, many fans hoped to attend the Miami shows but found themselves reluctant to splurge on tickets again.
âIâd consider myself a Swiftie, but sadly I wouldnât consider buying tickets for her show in Miami,â said Laura Iglesias, 20-year-old Cuban residing in Kendall, a die-hard fan who lost the battle for a presale code last year. âLast time I checked, the tickets were around $1,400 for really bad seats. Itâs just not worth it.â
The steep price tag has forced many devoted fans to decide between their love for Swift and high ticket prices. For them, the joy of attending a concert is overshadowed by the financial burden it brings.
âI remember when pit tickets were $100,â said Vega-Tortolero. âBut after the Eras Tour, itâs clear how much the demand has changed. Genuine fans donât have a chance anymore.â
The story was originally published by Caplin News, a publication of FIU's Lee Caplin School of Journalism & Media, as part of an editorial content partnership with the WLRN newsroom.
