NB

Taylor Swift kicked off the European leg of The Eras Tour last week in Paris, France. With the addition of a brand new set for her 2024 album, The Tortured Poets Department, Swift continues to impress fans across the globe. However, fans quickly noticed a difference in ticket prices for Swift’s shows in many European countries, specifically France and Sweden. Tickets for Swift’s shows in France were as low as $100 the day of the shows and tickets for her upcoming show on May 17th in Sweden are as low as $60 for side view tickets and $139 for general admission floor tickets. 

– Images from StubHub

Front row at a Taylor Swift concert for less than $200, something must be off. The low ticket prices in many European countries are due to the Digital Services Act for ticket resale marketplaces. The act bans inflated resale prices and requires sellers to sell their tickets for face value. According to an article by CNN, fans looking to buy tickets to the European leg of The Eras Tour are finding it substantially cheaper to see Swift overseas even with flights and hotels factored in. Many fans from the United States saw resale prices for side-view tickets at their shows for a minimum of $1000 with prices going over $15K for just one ticket. Many fans online have expressed that buying tickets and flying to Europe to see Swift in concert would be less expensive than purchasing the cheapest resale ticket in the city closest to them in the United States.

After wrapping up four shows at the París La Défense Arena, The CEO stated that more than 25% of the tickets for Taylor Swift’s Paris shows were bought by American fans. This is solely because a last-minute trip to France appears more reasonable than purchasing a ticket for the second U.S. leg of The Eras Tour. 

The divide in ticket prices between the U.S. and the EU can be revealed by understanding that the United States treats event tickets like commodities that can be sold according to market prices. On the other hand, the EU treats even tickets as a contract between the organizer and the consumer with terms and conditions that must be followed, not a commodity, according to an interview from CNN. The capitalist economy in the United States allows producers or in this case, resellers, to decide how much the ticket they bought is worth and price it accordingly. With no government regulations, resellers are allowed to create scarcity within the ticket market and drive up ticket demand, causing inflated ticket prices. The EU has a more regulated market when compared with the United States, treating event tickets as a contract that cannot be profited off of and can only be exchanged at its face value price. 

While fans in European countries have expressed their upset towards American fans, the real issue lies with resellers and weak resale laws in the United States. As someone who has bought tickets for two of Taylor Swift’s New Jersey shows and two of her shows in Europe, an entire trip to Europe plus the ticket prices ended up being cheaper than the price of the two tickets for Swift’s New Jersey shows.