Music fans have been expressing their issues with Ticketmaster‘s queue system for years and now the company’s President has made a comment that has everyone upset.
For most in-demand concerts, fans can enter a waiting room on Ticketmaster up to 30 minutes before the sale begins. Once the sale starts, Ticketmaster gives fans a spot in the queue, with all the people with lower numbers getting the chance to buy tickets first.
When Olivia Rodrigo‘s upcoming concerts went on sale recently, some fans had more than 200,000 people in front of them in the queue, while some fans pointed out in social media posts that they didn’t even have to wait in the queue at all.
Until now, most fans assumed that Ticketmaster randomly assigned the queue numbers, giving everyone an equal shot at getting tickets as long as they entered the waiting room before the sale started. Ticketmaster’s global president, Saumil Mehta, says that’s not true.
“I don’t know where this notion that queue positions are random came from. I have never said it, and I have asked internally and cannot find it written in help content etc,” Mehta said in response to a fan on X / Twitter.
So, why is this an issue?
Ticketmaster’s official Twitter account once tweeted saying that the queue numbers were random.
“The ‘Virtual Waiting Room’”’ randomly assigns you a place in the queue and allows the purchase of tickets to be as fair as possible and provides protection against bots. Don’t refresh or you will lose your place,” the account once tweeted.
Some fans have noted that their accounts always get poor spots in queues while their spouses or family members will get very low numbers. One fan said that her husband’s account gets great spots and he always transfers the tickets to her account after purchasing tickets.
Fans have come up with theories that Ticketmaster prioritizes accounts that are transferring tickets, allegedly supporting the resale of concert tickets instead of trying to get tickets into the hands of the true fans first. This theory has not been validated.
Twitter user @reputationlivie wrote, “the reason i saw taylor and am seeing harry/olivia multiple times is my husbands ticketmaster account. he always get queue numbers below 2k, often in the hundreds. the most notable activity on his account? the fact he transfers out EVERY TICKET HE BUYS. tbh all his ticketmaster activity reads as a bot. and he is constantly rewarded in the queue.”
Social media has been ablaze with frustration from music fans amid these comments from the Ticketmaster president.
Posted To:Ticketmaster
