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Ticketmaster and bots hit Taylor Swift's tour. But is scalping really bad? : The Indicator from Planet Money For most people, buying scalped tickets may be the only way to see Taylor Swift's Eras tour. Thanks, Ticketmaster. But economically speaking, the resale market is more complicated than it seems.

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The Indicator from Planet Money

Ticket scalpers and the Taylor Swift fiasco (Encore)

Ticket scalpers and the Taylor Swift fiasco (Encore)

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LOS ANGELES, CA - AUGUST 21: Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift performs onstage during The 1989 World Tour Live In Los Angeles at Staples Center on August 21, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for TAS)
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Christopher Polk/Getty Images
LOS ANGELES, CA - AUGUST 21: Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift performs onstage during The 1989 World Tour Live In Los Angeles at Staples Center on August 21, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for TAS)
Christopher Polk/Getty Images

Note: this episode originally ran in November 2021.

If you were lucky enough to win the Ticketmaster lottery for Taylor Swift tour tickets: screw you, but congratulations. For everyone else, options to attend one of the shows are dwindling–and with tickets selling for as much as $28,000 on the resale market, buying scalped tickets is looking tough to swallow.

Scalpers reselling tickets for exorbitant prices has long been a problem for live music fans. But economically speaking, is it as nonsensical as it seems? We revisit an episode from last year where we tried to buy tickets to a Charli XCX show and talk to an economist about the resale market.

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For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.