Ticketmaster has been in the news more than ever due to the Taylor Swift news story, but the truth is that the ticket industry is largely unknown to most people. While you probably know you have to go online to buy concert tickets, you may not really understand how the price is set for concert tickets or how any background decisions are made. For instance, you might not realize that, in some ways, artists have more control over their concert tickets than you know but not as much control over the process as they would like. It is small discrepancies like this that pave the way for presales; and presales can turn into mayhem.

Usually, artists or their record label decides the type of tour that they are likely to be able to support. Artists are taxed with selling enough tickets for the venue to deem them profitable. If an artist cannot sell enough tickets, then the venue might be downgraded or the tour might be canceled. Therefore, artists tend to carefully think about the number of tickets they can sell and their potential audience before booking any dates.

What many people don’t realize is that most artists need to be invited to a venue when they put touring bids out, so that can explain why an artist skips your city. They can’t just go to Ticketmaster, choose a few venues, and then start selling concert tickets. While a megastar like Taylor Swift can choose her own markets, most artists put out a release that they are launching a tour and then wait for venues to make a bid on them. After this is all done on the backend, they consult with a ticket agency that then handles their ticket sales.

Artists actually make much more money off of touring than do album sales, a fact that was cemented by the market shift to streaming. That is one reason why concert tickets now cost more than ever. Artists need to recoup the money so they can earn a salary that pays the bills. Unless your favorite artists happen to be megastars, they likely make very little off their record sales. Therefore, be prepared to pay a bit more than you may expect for concert tickets for an indie artist. These types of artists sometimes don’t even break when you consider the costs of touring versus what they earn off concert tickets.

Finally, Ticketmaster has introduced a new form of concert ticket pricing called demand pricing. Under this model, concert tickets can fluctuate in price based on demand. This can work for or against you when your favorite artists come to town unless it is a sell-out concert; usually, the day before a show is the best time to buy concert tickets.