Last Week Tonight host John Oliver has turned his sharp gaze toward the scourge of live entertainment: ridiculously inflated ticket prices. Breaking down how Ticketmaster, scalpers, and even some artists themselves are contributing to the problem, Oliver ran through a slew of issues with how concert tickets are currently sold and distributed.
“Ticketmaster is one of the most hated companies on Earth, which is really impressive ’cause remember, this is a planet in which AT&T also exists,” he quipped.
While a lot of blame is rightfully placed on ticket scalpers, Oliver also noted that artists often only release a small percentage of concert tickets direct to the public. The rest of the tickets are distributed in much less straightforward ways.
“A group of tickets held for [Justin] Bieber’s tour ended up being released not to the box office, but straight to the secondary market,” said Oliver, explaining how the singer seemed to be scalping his own tickets. “And on one hand, I do get the impulse of, ‘If someone is gonna make $246 off that ticket, shouldn’t it be the person who is doing the performing,’ but it still doesn’t feel great, does it? And it’s also not gonna stop me from showing you that clip of him falling down a hole again.”
