The massive venues, crowded stadiums, and adrenaline rush when the artist emerges from the dark void of the stage are all reasons fans fight for limited concert tickets. In the last few years, it has become increasingly difficult to purchase tickets for almost any concert, prompting fans to participate in “Ticketmaster wars,” the fight in hopes of grabbing the sparse amount of tickets for an event.
Throughout recent years, Minneapolis has become a hot spot for artists’ tours, attracting more concerts and festivals. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour ran from March to August 2023 in the United States and had thousands in a chokehold to purchase tickets before they sold out, with over 120,000 fans attending the Eras Tour at the U.S. Bank Stadium over two nights in June. The Eras Tour’s Minneapolis show was a high-demand, sold-out event that was record-breaking.
Minnesota’s major concert stadium is the U.S. Bank Stadium, which produced a distinguished operating revenue figure, totalling $46.5M in its nine year history and hosting 140 events during the 2025 financial year.
Minnesota’s rising popularity as a concert destination has also made buying tickets harder for fans. In November of 2022, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour presale caused immense issues within Ticketmaster across the nation, including a huge shutdown and millions being kicked out of the presale queue.
This let-down brought politics into the mix. Senator Amy Klobuchar publicly criticized Ticketmaster’s ticketing system, highlighting its merger with Live Nation which created a monopoly. According to Ticketmaster, the company has historically been able to handle large amounts of fans onsite to grab tickets, but the Eras Tour presale was bombarded with bots and a variety of fans who did not receive the code required to access the presale.
Since the Eras Tour presale disaster, Ticketmaster has taken steps to ban bots that cause the website to glitch during ticket openings, to stagger out and slow down the sales, and to limit the queue to only the fans who have presale codes. The progress has not only made Ticketmaster into a more efficient app, but has also satisfied the consumers across the nation and lowered anxiety pertaining to the “ticket wars.”
This piece was originally published in Zephyrus’ print edition on April 9, 2026
