The return of Travis Scott to large-scale touring for the first time since the Astroworld tragedy in 2021 doesn’t appear to be of high interest to the ticket-buying public. The rapper’s tour dates for the Utopia Tour – Circus Maximus dates that kick off this month have drawn headlines all week for crashing ticket prices as thousands of seats remain unsold, and even more tickets are available for resale.
While the tour saw sky-high ticket prices when shows were initially announced and put on sale in August – drawing complaints from fans who balked at the thought of paying $400-plus for floor seats in some venues – the opposite is happening as shows get underway. Tickets for a show this week in North Carolina can be had for as little as $11 on resale marketplaces, while the box office is charging significantly more.
Take tomorrow’s tour opener at Spectrum Center in Charlotte. As stated in the last paragraph, a ticket on TicketClub.com – a resale marketplace with discounts for members – is $11 and up, with scores of seats priced at $20 or less. Shopping with the “official” marketplace of the Spectrum Center – Ticketmaster – will show consumers prices as low as $46.95 for unsold “primary” ticket inventory. Resale tickets – many in the same sections and rows as tickets available through resale for pennies on the dollar – are not available for less than $75.65 through the official seller.
This stark contrast between the prices shown to consumers on “official” ticketing systems and those unaffiliated are due to the tour organizer and its ticketing system propping up the asking price. All resale tickets for the show are blocked by the event organizer from going below a “floor” price, artificially inflating the price consumers are paying for tickets from the box office, compared to unaffiliated resale prices. This is why the resale price floor for Charlotte is nearly double what the “standard” ticket that remains unsold would cost a consumer shopping for tickets at the “official” site, while resale tickets are available elsewhere for pennies on the dollar.
Price floors are a little-known but regrettably common deceptive practice in ticketing, famously in place earlier this year for a Bruce Springsteen show in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and again for later shows on Springsteen’s tour before it was postponed to 2024. In Travis Scott’s case, his tour promoter and its vendor, Ticketmaster, are interfering with the resale market to an extent that is forcing prices far higher when shopping on their platform.
“Resale price floors harm consumers twice-over,” John Breyault of the National Consumers League told TicketNews during the reporting of that Tulsa Springsteen show and its price floor reveal. “First, they keep discounted tickets from being available to fans who would otherwise be unable to attend a show. Second, they harm sellers who simply want to recoup at least a portion of their ticket investment when they are unable to attend an event. Fans should not be the ones to pay the price when Live Nation and its clients fail to anticipate lower-than-expected demand for an event.”
Many other shows on Scott’s tour are seeing similar price surges through floor prices. An October 20 Travis Scott stop at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City has seats in the upper level are available for as low as $14 each, including fees at TicketClub.com. Lower level seats are up for grabs starting as low as $40. Resale marketplace MEGASeats provided TicketNews data showing that almost 50% of the tickets listed for sale to that performance are being offered at below the initial face value paid for them.
While many of the headlines surrounding Travis Scott’s tour sales woes have focused on the fact that it appears some who purchased tickets and now have to resell them will lose significant amounts of money in the process, it doesn’t appear that many have picked up on the price floors differential being forced out of consumers by the event operators and the primary box office ticket vendor.
Scott’s tour gets underway this week in North Carolina. Hopefully consumers are able to locate tickets priced to the actual market on resale marketplaces rather than being deceived into paying far more through the preferred marketplace.
Ticket Links
Travis Scott tickets at MEGASeats | 10% discount for Ticketnews readers
Travis Scott tickets at ScoreBig
Travis Scott tickets at SeatGeek
Travis Scott tickets at StubHub
Travis Scott tickets at Ticket Club | Free membership for Ticketnews readers
Travis Scott tickets at Vivid Seats
Travis Scott 2023 Tour Dates
10/11 – Charlotte, NC | Spectrum Center
10/13 – Raleigh, NC | PNC Arena
10/17 – Dallas, TX | American Airlines Center
10/18 – Dallas, TX | American Airlines Center
10/20 – Kansas City, MO | T-Mobile Center
10/22 – Denver, CO | Ball Arena
10/25 – Phoenix, AZ | Footprint Center
10/26 – Phoenix, AZ | Footprint Center
10/29 – Las Vegas, NV | MGM Grand Garden Arena
10/31 – Oakland, CA | Oakland Arena
11/1 – Oakland, CA | Oakland Arena
11/5 – Inglewood, CA | SoFi Stadium
11/8 – Seattle, WA | Climate Pledge Arena
11/10 – Vancouver, BC | Rogers Arena
11/12 – Portland, OR | Moda Center
11/13 – Portland, OR | Moda Center
11/15 – Salt Lake City, UT | Delta Center
11/18 – Tulsa, OK | BOK Center
11/21 – Austin, TX | Moody Center ATX
11/25 – Atlanta, GA | State Farm Arena
11/27 – Miami, FL | Kaseya Center
11/29 – Miami, FL | Kaseya Center
12/4 – Nashville, TN | Bridgestone Arena
12/6 – Baltimore, MD | CFG Bank Arena
12/10 – Philadelphia, PA | Wells Fargo Center
12/12 – Detroit, MI | Little Caesars Arena
12/15 – Chicago, IL | United Center
12/18 – Brooklyn, NY | Barclays Center
12/19 – Brooklyn, NY | Barclays Center
12/21 – New York, NY | Madison Square Garden
12/22 – Boston, MA | TD Garden
12/23 – Boston, MA | TD Garden
12/26 – Newark, NJ | Prudential Center
12/28 – Toronto, ON | Scotiabank Arena
12/29 – Toronto, ON | Scotiabank Arena
