Olivia Dean isn’t special
Every time another Ticketmaster fiasco happens I start a version of this article and end up leaving it unfinished, but hopefully today, through this particular lens, is the day I get it done.
Olivia Dean managed to get Ticketmaster to stop reselling her tickets for her upcoming tour at ridiculously inflated prices and also get them to refund everyone who overpaid the difference.
Olivia Dean isn’t special.
She just made a big enough fuss. It’s not a different rule for her than every other artist using Ticketmaster/Live Nation. Another consideration I had for the title of this piece is “if they wanted to, they could”. She got this changed because she cared about it enough – if your favourite artist doesn’t do the same, it’s because they just don’t.
And I recognise that’s hard to hear. I also recognise the burden of putting this on artists. It’s another thing we’re asking them to do, but unfortunately sometimes it’s the people with the power that need to take on these responsibilities for the benefit of the entire industry – even if it’s kind of inconvenient and not something they really want to do.
In case you’re in any doubt about this Ticketmaster publicly stated the following:
We support artists’ rights to decide how their tickets are sold and resold and offer tools like the Face Value Exchange for any tour to use. We pioneered the first face value exchange in 2019 to cap resale prices, a tool artists like Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam, Something Corporate, Hayley Williams and others have used to protect millions of fans from inflated resale. We continue to support artists’ rights to decide how their tickets are sold and resold.
Put simply: They do what the artist tells them. I’m never one to support these big companies that continue to chew up the music industry but it seems like here, the responsibility doesn’t solely rest with them.
Olivia Dean isn’t special.
She just cared passionately enough about this to create a change. Others have done the same. Pearl Jam have offered first pick of their tickets to genuine fans for years, Ed Sheeran used to care deeply about fair ticketing access (emphasise on the ‘used to’ there though), Chappell Roan created her own venues to get around the Ticketmaster issue, and Hayley Williams’ recent tour sale had a heavily focused fan first ticket sales process.
Olivia Dean isn’t special
She is outspoken and refused to be complicit in an extortionist monopoly that prices genuine fans out of tickets and exists only to make an already over-bloated company richer (and I don’t just mean Ticketmaster – record labels, promoters, and billionaire artists are all getting their slice of the pie here). Yes, Olivia has the buzz around her right now to help amplify her voice, but so do many other people who could also stand up and be counted. People who could push back and say “no” to Ticketmaster. Especially now, when Ticketmaster has publicly stated they’ll support artists choices and decisions. A big push on this could see an end to dynamic pricing and a big reduction in ticket touring once and for all.
Olivia Dean isn’t special, but her choice to speak up and protect her fans, to stand for a fairer music industry – that’s definitely something a little bit special!