Ticketmaster defends $5000 Springsteen tickets

Tickets for some dates of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's 2023 tour went on sale last week and they were not cheap. In fact, platinum seats topped out at a whopping $5000. This was in part due to Ticketmaster's "dynamic pricing" system, that allows the price of tickets to fluctuate with demand. They claim it's designed to ward off scalpers, but it's received criticism since they implemented it, and it's been widely derided in the wake of Springsteen.

Defending themselves, Variety notes that Ticketmaster released stats of Springsteen ticket sales, saying that elite-priced platinum tickets only accounted for 11.2% of tickets sold, with only 1% going for above $1000, and the rest falling between $59.50 to $399. Ticketmaster says that the average ticket went for $262 (which is still very expensive), with 56% being sold for under $200.

“Prices and formats are consistent with industry standards for top performers," Ticketmaster wrote in a statement. Springsteen has not commented.

Springsteen tickets are seeing a staggered release, with the majority of dates going on sale this week from Tuesday through Friday. Tickets for his NYC-area shows — Madison Square Garden on April 1, Brooklyn's Barclays Center on April 3 (not a Ticketmaster show), Belmont's UBS Arena on April 9 and 11 and NJ's Prudential Center on April 14 — go on sale Friday, July 29 at 10 AM.

$5000 is also the average rent in Manhattan, a new record.

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