Latest Ticketmaster Meltdowns—Ariana Grande, Bon Jovi Tours

Photo Credit: Ariana Grande by Emma Sheehan / CC by 2.0

Ticketmaster cancels tickets flagged for suspicious activity to combat resellers, but the move affects legitimate fans.

Fans of Ariana Grande have fought hard to secure tickets to the superstar’s first tour since 2018, but now some are distraught to find their tickets cancelled by Ticketmaster, especially when some fans paid an exorbitant price on the resale market.

Since Grande announced her Eternal Sunshine tour in August, and tickets went on sale in September, her fans have endured a grueling pre-sale and general sale that saw thousands of fans waiting in long online queues. But many of those who finally got through to make a purchase found sold-out arenas and zero tickets available. Just days later, tickets started popping up again, but at much higher prices.

That led to the speculation that scalpers got a hold of most of the tickets—similar to what happened with Taylor Swift’s hugely successful Eras Tour. Ariana took to social media earlier this month to announce that her team was aware of the issue with resellers, and that she was “incredibly bothered” by it.

“I’ve been on the phone every second of my free time fighting for a solution. I hear you, and hopefully, we will be able to get more of these tickets into your hands instead of theirs. It’s not right,” she wrote. “I just wanted you to know that my team and I see it and that I care very much and we will do, and are doing, everything we can.”

But fans have expressed frustration specifically with Ticketmaster, which cancelled many tickets flagged for suspicious activity. The problem may stem from scalpers actually selling the same ticket multiple times, which puts more money in their pocket but leaves fans high and dry when the venue says their ticket ID was already used. As a result, Ticketmaster may have cancelled tickets altogether that were deemed suspicious.

That move affected ticket sales on the secondary market through StubHub too, which is a verified reseller. A StubHub spokesperson reminded fans that the company’s FanProtect Guarantee fully covers every order on the platform.

“If anything goes wrong, we’ll either get you into the show or give you your money back,” said Alix Anfang, a spokesperson for StubHub. “Fans shouldn’t lose their seats simply because they chose a trusted, regulated resale marketplace. While we support efforts to stop bad actors, broad cancellations that impact real fans do the opposite. We’re urging Ticketmaster to reinstate valid tickets and adopt transfer policies that put fans first.”

Of course, it’s not just Ariana fans who are having ticket-purchasing headaches. The queues for Bon Jovi’s Forever Tour have been similarly clogged, but fans online said there’s a potential workaround—try refreshing the page.

“Just managed to get a single general admission standing ticket,” wrote one fan. “Had 25k people in the queue in front of me. Took a couple of refreshes but it paid off.”

“I got in after being over 7,000 in the queue,” commented another. “The site crashed and the page was blank. It then loaded and said tickets ‘unavailable’—I refreshed thinking I had no hope, but then it reloaded and worked.”

The general on-sale for Bon Jovi tickets starts tomorrow morning via Live Nation and Ticketmaster. But tickets are likely to show up on resale platforms soon too, so hopefully the ticketing giant won’t force the cancellation of tickets the way they have for Ariana’s run. Keep an eye on this space for updates.