Alright... whinge alert. As an industry, we need to figure out and improve the ticket-buying experience for fans trying to attend high-demand gigs and festivals. It's not exactly a spicy hot take - we all kind of know it, and I think we’ve got complacent about how much hassle people will tolerate to spend serious money. Fans jump through hoops, and when things go wrong, artists can find themselves in damage limitation mode too.

RAYE’s Royal Albert Hall sale brought that into focus this week. She said ticket tout bots had flooded registration with fake sign-ups and explained that her team had to manually review the list and select people to invite to the artist presale. That meant sifting through a lot of garbage data just to decide who would get the opportunity to try to buy a ticket. Shout out to RAYE's team for doing that unexpected task, which probably derailed their entire week 😟.

There have been more encouraging signs elsewhere. The September sale for Oasis Live ’27 used staggered buying windows and prices published in advance, with reports of buyers completing their purchases without much trouble. After the 2024 reunion sale, that deserves some credit, although a smoother process still leaves fans with a substantial bill. Standard standing tickets at Celtic Park in Glasgow were £170.50 or £203.50, including fees. Cheaper seats were listed, but two people choosing the cheaper standing tickets were committing £341 between them before paying to get there.

Glastonbury’s 2027 ticket costs £408 including the booking fee, plus postage. That buys five nights’ camping and an enormous programme, so there’s plenty of value, but the money still has to come from somewhere during a time when fuel prices and subsequently everything else is through the roof. Then, on top of that financial commitment, there are registration deadlines, sale windows and booking details to keep track of. People organise their day around the chance to spend this money, without knowing whether doing everything asked of them will be enough to complete a purchase.

That uncertainty comes through in the accounts of people trying. Just take a cursory look through Reddit and socials. During Glastonbury’s coach sale, one buyer said they had to switch between their computer and their phone after an access restriction, retaining their queue position and eventually getting tickets despite further problems with the payment page. They described a stressful experience even though they got their tickets in the end. A buyer trying for RAYE tickets reported getting through the queue, being asked to sign in again and then being kicked out. On another attempt, they landed on their membership page instead of the tickets, leaving them to start over once more.

Those are individual accounts, and other buyers had smoother experiences, but they show why getting a ticket at the end doesn’t make every part of the process fine. When you’re trying to work out whether you’ve lost your place, whether to start again or whether that will make things worse, you’re also aware that the tickets could be disappearing. Getting through a checkout should be a basic expectation, and someone can be thrilled to be going while remaining thoroughly pissed off with what it took to get there.

I don’t have the whole answer to how we fix this, but Oasis shows that changes to the way a sale works can improve the experience. That deserves a pat on the back and should push expectations up across the industry. People should know what they might have to pay, and be able to complete a purchase without having to troubleshoot it themselves. The enthusiasm for live music is doing a lot of work here. People persevere because they want that special live experience, and we shouldn’t mistake their willingness to keep trying for satisfaction with what we’re asking of them.

Tickets are really fucking expensive. Buying them shouldn’t be this much of an ordeal.