By APRIL HOUNSOME
Staff Writer

This is the era of technology, and it’s helped move the world forward in a lot of ways.

One of the major advances has been access to music.

Whether it’s browsing in a store, watching a movie or putting headphones in, music is always playing and being listened to.

And if we’re listening to recorded music, we almost always want to listen to live music as well.

So why is it so difficult to get tickets if you can just click on the mousepad and select them?

A recent problem that is causing frustration is the fact that Ticketmaster is selling out of all the tickets during the fan pre-sale and then “releasing” resale tickets the next day.

Pre-sale, especially “verified fan” pre-sales are hard to get into.

A lot of people who have been fans for years get turned away, and find out they can’t even get tickets at the general sale after. That is not fair.

It’s even worse when people who are not fans and have never listened to the artist(s) buy tickets just for kicks.

I understand people should feel free to join in and listen to a new artist, but if you’re an actual fan, you should be given priority for verification for presales.

The system is flawed and that’s just one example of why.

Another problem is bots.

Hackers can set up electronic “bots,” coded programs designed to go in and buy mass amounts of tickets.

This leads to the largest problem: that tickets are being resold for as much as four times the original price.

I’ve seen $30 tickets on resale for $400.

That is insane. Not many people can afford to pay $400 for a ticket. And who would with that much of a difference between prices?

A different issue which popped up recently in the news is when Mike Nero from Welland received an email from Ticketmaster claiming his seat had been sold to him “by accident.”

City News Toronto reported the story, which included footage of Nero explaining everything.

Supposedly his ticket had already been sold and was accidentally sold to him after.

Ticketmaster is looking into the issue and has offered two solutions: take a seat in the front row of a farther back section with a $25 refund or get a full refund.
Nero doesn’t want to take either option.

And why should he? He bought a ticket in the fourth row at the concert of a singer he loves and Ticketmaster is essentially screwing him over.

If you buy a ticket and something like this happens, you should be given a seat just as good. Or a suitable refund and a good apology.

Ticketmaster needs to step in and fix these problems. If someone buys a ticket, they should get it.

If someone applies for verification and they’re a fan, they should have a higher chance of getting in.

If someone does not get verified, they should be able to get tickets during the general sale the next day.

We are in a technology-centred era, so why is it failing us in this area?