Ever since Beyoncé announced her Renaissance tour, her fans have been ecstatic. The Grammy-winning singer hasn’t toured since 2016, so the anticipation is high. Fans are game to travel for the shows, pay a fortune to attend them, and even deal with a much-criticized ticketing service to get seats.
One fan tweeted, “I figured it out! I’ll spend the $500 on club renaissance section tickets for Beyoncé’s tour and then I won’t be able to eat for 6 months so I’ll be snatch when I see her!!”
Another fan tweeted about liquidating his 401(k) just to afford a ticket.
In light of last year’s Taylor Swift’s concert ticket fiasco, many Beyoncé fans are nervous. Ticketmaster, the ticket seller whose site crashed during the frenzy for Swift tickets, is the official seller of Beyoncé’s tour tickets.
In November, presale tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour became available, and, unsurprisingly, fans rushed to buy them. They ended up having to endure long wait times after the site became overloaded, causing Ticketmaster to cancel its planned general sale due to an insufficient number of tickets available. Fans were livid because it forced them to pay exorbitant prices to catch Swift’s first tour in five years; Swift was also angry.
Bots were said to have caused a part of the disruption. Ticketmaster ultimately apologized, but the damage was done.
The ticketing fiasco quickly snowballed from being about disgruntled fans to a political issue. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D.-NY) advised Swift fans on how to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice. Tennessee’s Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti began investigating Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, over alleged violations of antitrust and consumer protection laws.
Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, and has since been criticized for being a monopoly and for charging exorbitant fees. In a hearing in January, the Senate Judiciary Committee called Live Nation out for dominating the live-concert industry.
That hasn’t stopped the company from continuing to be the biggest ticket seller.
As for Beyoncé’s tour, which runs from May to the end of September, the interest in tickets is expected to be high for each of the 40-plus shows. The ticketing for the shows will begin Monday. Prices have yet to be disclosed.
“Fan demand already exceeds the number of tickets available by more than 800%” based on the number of fan registration in some of the big cities, Ticketmaster said in a statement Wednesday.
A spokesperson at Ticketmaster told Fortune that it has staggered ticket sales in batches of cities and included a multi-step verification process for fans hoping to buy tickets in an effort to weed out bots and resellers.
Despite the new guardrails, everyone is keeping an eye on how Ticketmaster runs its sale, including the government.
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