This is the pitchwork review. I'm Pooja Patel, the editor-in-chief.

Today we're getting into something that music fans can't stop talking about,

which is the insane and rising costs of concert tickets.

We're talking about the big tours from major artists at huge venues that are

largely priced by Ticketmaster. Maybe you've experienced this frustration yourself while looking

for Bruce Springsteen tickets or being priced out of Beyonce or endlessly refreshing your browser

for Taylor Swift's seats. Here with me to dissect why ticket prices have become so

outrageous and to dive into the complicated dynamics of going to see your favorite artists are Jill

Mapes and Mark Hogan. Welcome, friends. Hi, thanks for having us on to talk about such a frustrating

topic. Truly. Yes, thank you, Boucher. on to talk about such a frustrating topic.

Truly.

Yes, thank you, Pusia.

Let me start with asking, have you experienced this in the last year or two?

Have you been stuck in the kind of like endless wheel on the Ticketmaster refresh page? Or like like have you tried to get tickets to Taylor Swift for your kids perhaps? You know, like have you? Yes, my non-existent kid. Well, I'm looking at Mark for

that one. No, yeah, no, they don't fall quite the right age group or whatever. But yeah, no, I mean,

I mean, I've been

annoyed by ticket master fees for, you know, a long time, but I mainly try to go to smaller shows.

I mean, I, half of me is like, this is completely ridiculous. Like, why would anybody pay these

amounts? But then the other part of me was kind of like, ooh, you know, maybe a Wednesday night with Beyonce in Kansas City would have some cheaper seats and we can get there.

Yeah, I wanted Beyonce tickets and I was just stressed out trying to make a game plan.

Yeah.

Like, should I go in Pittsburgh near where I'm from? It's easier. There's like it's a later

...