The Weird History of Concert Tickets Part 1

Buying a concert ticket should be simple and easy...but has it ever been?

In this two-part series, we're going to try to unpack the surprisingly long, messy, and often corrupt evolution of ticketing, from ancient Greek theatres to the rise of computerized systems in the late 20th century.

We'll dig into how tickets evolved from physical tokens and box-office lineups to early computer-driven services like Ticketron, Select-A-Seat, BASS, and the early days of Ticketmaster.

We've seen persistent problems that never seem to go away: scalping, service charges, bribery, counterfeit tickets, unequal access, and frustrated fans. From the very first rock concert disaster in 1952 to the technological growing pains of the 1970s and ’80s, there were never any “good old days” when it came to buying tickets.

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