Olivia Dean criticizes Ticketmaster and AEG over ticket resale prices.

16 hours ago7 min read1 comments

Olivia Dean has officially arrived at that quintessential pop star rite of passage: the public takedown of a ticketing behemoth. Fresh off the high of securing her first Top 5 US hit with the soulful 'Man I Need,' a debut Grammy nod for Best New Artist, and a whirlwind week that saw her grace the stages of both *Saturday Night Live* and the ARIA Awards, the British singer-songwriter has shifted her focus from celebratory champagne to righteous indignation.The target? The dreaded duo of Ticketmaster and AEG, whom she has blasted for what she termed 'disgusting' resale prices for her upcoming tour. This isn't just a minor gripe; it's a symphony of frustration playing out in a key that every music fan knows all too well.For an artist like Dean, whose sound is built on a foundation of warm, vinyl-crackle authenticity and lyrical vulnerability, seeing her tickets immediately snatched up and relisted at astronomical markups on secondary platforms feels like a profound betrayal of the very community she's cultivated. It’s the jarring dissonance between an artist’s intimate connection with their audience and the cold, algorithmic scalping that treats live music as a pure commodity.The issue of ticket resale is the perennial scratch on an otherwise pristine record, a problem that has plagued the industry for decades but has reached a fever pitch in the digital age. We’ve seen legends like Pearl Jam take on Ticketmaster in the 90s, and more recently, the firestorm around Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which brought congressional scrutiny to the company’s dominant market position and its dynamic pricing model.Dean’s entry into this fray is significant because she represents the new guard of pop—artists who are more accessible, more socially conscious, and more directly engaged with their fans through social media. Her outrage isn't just a press release; it's a direct message to her followers, a shared lament that resonates deeply in a cost-of-living crisis where a concert ticket can feel like an unattainable luxury. The response from the companies will be telling; will they offer the standard corporate boilerplate about being a 'fan-first' platform and the realities of a free market, or will the growing chorus of criticism from artists across the genre spectrum—from indie darlings to global superstars—finally force a substantive change in how tickets are allocated and sold? This moment is more than a feud; it’s a critical verse in the ongoing ballad about who truly benefits from the art of live performance, and whether the soul of music can survive its own business.

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#AEG

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