Over the summer, Ariana Grande announced her Eternal Sunshine World Tour, her first tour after five years. Everyone knows that I am the BIGGEST Ariana Grande fan. Name a concert of hers, I’ve been there. Name an album release, I was up till twelve a.m to listen. So when she announced this tour after a long concert hiatus, I knew I had to be there.
With concerts that have such high demand, Ticketmaster, which is arguably the most popular concert app, hosts a presale before the general on-sale. This is SUPPOSED to be a way for big fans to sign up and buy tickets at the original price before the general public does. Grande’s presale was scheduled for Tuesday, September 9th at 10 a.m. I knew things were going to be chaotic when I saw that over six MILLION people signed up for the presale. My mom (another huge Ari fan) and I knew we had to prepare if we were going to try to fight six million people for tickets.
My mom, dad, two brothers and I had our laptops open at 9AM, an hour before the presale. When it hit 10AM, that’s when my laptop said a whopping ten thousand people were in front of me in the queue. If the arena only holds fifteen thousand people, and most people are buying more than one ticket, I don’t know why I thought I had a chance. Still, I waited on the anxiety-ridden Ticketmaster app for my turn in the queue.
Almost an hour and thirty minutes later, it was my turn. I whipped my credit card out in the middle of class thinking I was going to successfully purchase my seats. I was wrong.
The second it loaded, a big “sold out” screen covered my laptop. I nearly had tears in my eyes from frustration. After waiting 2 whole hours and saving up money for months, I can’t even get one ticket. I can’t imagine all the young girls who were so excited to see their favorite singer and lost the Ticketmaster war to resellers who buy the tickets just to list them for twenty times the price.
My point is it shouldn’t be this hard to go to a concert. You shouldn’t have to go through this much stress and preparation just to get a singular ticket that is already overpriced. I’m praying I can still find a way to see my girl Ari, but now I’m not too sure.
