What you are seeing now in the last few years is with industry consolidation following the same playbook Ticketmaster applied to the music industry since at least the 1990s, to Pearl Jam's dismay.
The video summarizes this long history well.
In economic terms tickets are only "too expensive" if they can't find buyers.
To start with, who are you quoting with "too expensive"?
Second, your analysis does not explain why it is cheaper to fly to Europe to see Taylor Swift on the same tour as in the US. https://apnews.com/article/taylor-swift-europe-eras-tour-fan... attributes the cost difference due to "restrictions on ticket fees and resales", rather easy of purchasing.
Just like in the video.
Ultimately concerts and events tickets are optional leisure/luxury items and, as I mentioned, we can argue all we want about bad monopolies but as long as the tickets sell it means the price is fine, so why would they be cheaper? It's not an ideological belief about anything or a rejection of anything.
This is a natural monopoly anyway. There are no competing Taylor Swift concerts for instance and, at least for popular events the number of available tickets is going to be smaller than the number of people interested and the basic law of supply and demand applies.
When we see how prices often still massively inflate on resale it seems to me that official prices could often still be higher if they wanted to but it then becomes a PR issue. We've recently seen that here in the UK with dynamic pricing for tickets to the Oasis reunion.
Perhaps they are simply getting more effective, and with fewer qualms, at extracting the best prices possible.
ticketmaster ensures this doesn’t happen by controlling the market, so venues that don’t use them get locked out from artists and artists who don’t play ticketmaster only venues get locked out from too much of their audience.
Odd that so many people feel that they are somehow entitled to low prices for something that is totally optional and by its very nature always in short supply.
This a dishonest characterization of criticism of monopoly abuse of the market. Those fees aren’t going to the artists, they’re highlighting the way competition has been removed from the market. This affects both sides of the equation: it’s not just that ticket buyers have few options but also that bands and venues also have little choice – if they buck Ticketmaster they’ll be shut out of a lot of deals which everyone else would like to happen. It’s hardly entitlement to think that market competition would be better for everyone except Ticketmaster.
Again, I don't understand the aggressivity here over such a trivial topic...
Look at your posts and the way you’re responding to other people. For example, if you ignore their points and then dismiss them as “entitled” you don’t have much standing to tone police everyone else.