Beyoncé recently announced her Cowboy Carter tour which has two dates at the Northwest Stadium in Maryland. I saw her there in 2023, so I obviously had plans to see her again this summer at that same stadium. 

The tickets for every tour date were sold through Ticketmaster, except for the Maryland dates. If you wanted to see her in Maryland, you’d have to go through SeatGeek. I was excited to see the tickets weren’t being sold through Ticketmaster because all the concert girls know that Ticketmaster is possibly the worst thing to ever happen to society. 

I’ve only ever purchased resale tickets through SeatGeek meaning I’ve never had to go through the process of buying tickets on release day. So, this would be my first real ticket buying experience with SeatGeek and I was excited to see what would happen. 

Long story short: everything sucked and I need the SeatGeek corporate office to be tried for their crimes. 

To start off, there was no clear understanding of how the presale would work through SeatGeek. Ticketmaster made a carousel post for their social media to let people know exactly how things would go, but us SeatGeek users were left in the dark. Strike one for SeatGeek.

On the day of the sale, I joined the waiting room to be in prime position when they opened up the queue. Sometimes apps do a bad job of updating your spot in the queue after you’ve been in the waiting room, but luckily SeatGeek automatically placed me in the queue without me having to do anything. One point for SeatGeek.

Sadly, when I was in the queue, I was kicked out and put back in the waiting room. Strike two for SeatGeek.

I was able to get back in the queue and after what felt like years of waiting, I finally made it to the tickets. I could see the layout of the stadium and what seats were open. However, when looking at the tickets and their prices, it became very clear to me that something was not right. Tickets in the 300 level sections were going for at least $200. Tickets in the 200 level for at least  $300. Tickets in the 100 level were $400 plus and don’t even get me started on the floor seats. 

You may be thinking, Lauryn, why is it SeatGeek’s fault that Beyonce’s tickets were too high? And to that I’d say that SeatGeek was using dynamic pricing. I saw with my own two eyes, seats jump from $200 to $500. Because the demand for these tickets were so high, the prices kept going up because they knew people would buy them. Now I do partially blame Beyoncé because they give you the option to use dynamic pricing, but why have the option at all? What happened to having tickets be a set price? What happened to good ‘ole tradition? Strike three for SeatGeek.

SeatGeek also did a terrible job of removing tickets off the site after they’d been purchased. Why am I given the option to click on a seat and view the ticket price, but then when I try to put it in my cart it’s suddenly “not available”? Strike one thousand for SeatGeek.

If you ever find yourself having to buy tickets directly through SeatGeek, I apologize in advance. If it’s anything like the experience I had last week, my thoughts and prayers will be with you. 10 out of 10 do not recommend.