Olivia Rodrigo’s ticket presale opened Tuesday, May 5, and the reaction from fans was immediate: outrage over prices that climbed from more than $200 in the farthest arena sections to nearly $800 on the floor. Some fans said the prices for the Live Nation-promoted Unraveled Tour should be illegal, while others called them outrageous, disgusting and insane.
The American Express card members presale runs through Wednesday, May 6 at 10 p.m. local time, but many buyers encountered online queues, error codes and long wait times on Ticketmaster. Fans also reported nosebleed seats at $235 and back-row O2 seats at £147, with some saying the numbers changed right in front of them as they refreshed the page.
Rodrigo’s 65-date tour is meant to support her forthcoming album, and it arrives in a climate where concertgoers have repeatedly lashed out over pricing on Ticketmaster for major acts including Bruce Springsteen, Zach Bryan, Sabrina Carpenter, Sleep Token, Ghost and Green Day. Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing system has been a flashpoint in those disputes because it can raise prices based on demand, a model that fans say turns a sale into a race.
The backlash also lands against remarks from Live Nation chief executive Michael Rapino, who called rising ticket costs “underpriced” last year. That comment has lingered with fans as they compare a 20,000-capacity arena run with the kind of demand that can push prices higher in a 90,000-capacity stadium setting, even before the first general sale begins.
For now, the answer to whether the presale frenzy will ease as more tickets are released appears to be no. The complaints are already the story, and the message from fans is blunt: they do not see these prices as premium access, but as the cost of being shut out.