Ticketmaster seems to be on everyone’s hit list. ICYMI, fans of Ariana Grande were shocked to see 15 events under her name listed for 2025 on Ticketmaster’s. But there was one major problem — Grande has no live events actually scheduled for the upcoming year. So, what the heck happened and why did Ticketmaster get everyone’s hopes up like that? Let’s break it down.
On Dec. 14, fans noticed that “15 events” showed up under Grande’s name when searching “Ariana Grande” on Ticketmaster. However, there weren’t any actual events listed on her Ticketmaster profile. Grande’s vocal coach even liked a fan’s post showing the Ticketmaster screen of 15 events under Grande’s name. This led many people to question if Grande really was planning on going on her mini tour, which she revealed she was interested in doing while appearing on the July 9 episode of the Shut Up Evan podcast.“I think it would be a really lovely idea to be able to trickle in some shows in between the two Wicked films. I think there’s a version of that that exists.”
Sadly, this mini-tour still remains nothing more than an idea because not long after fans started losing it over the “15 events” listed under the singer’s name on Ticketmaster, Republic Records released a statement saying that Ari isn’t going on tour in 2025.
“There are no plans for a tour next year, but Ariana remains deeply appreciative of her fans and all their continued love, support, and excitement,” the company wrote.
With all the press our Grande is doing for Wicked, it makes sense why she has no plans to tour at the moment. In early November, the “Break Free” singer went on Wicked co-star’s Bowen Yang and Matt Roger’s podcast, Las Culturistas to talk about her role in the highly anticipated musical film adaptation. She admitted that although she knows it may sound scary to her fans, she plans to always do pop stuff. “I love acting; I love musical theater,” she said. “I think reconnecting with this part of myself who started in musical theater and who loves comedy — it heals me to do that.”
When it comes to singing and songwriting, she explained that acting “feeds” her differently than making music. To her, being a singer means “constantly reliving that one thing that you wrote the song about.”
This isn’t the first time Ticketmaster has let fans down. Let’s bring it back to Taylor Swift’s recently-wrapped Eras Tour. Described by CNN as leaving a legacy of “legal hell unleashed against one of the most despised companies on the planet,” the ticket site was not prepared for the millions of fans flocking to it in 2022 when the tour first went on sale. Fans waited in queues all day but some were left with a frozen screen or even got logged out of their accounts. As a result, ticket scalpers and bots grabbed tickets to later resell for exorbitant prices. It was traumatic, judging from the amount of posters at Swift’s concerts reading “I survived the Ticketmaster War.”
The Justice Department later sued Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, claiming “the company abused its power as the nation’s biggest concert promoter to stifle competition, forcing fans to pay more and bully artists and venues into using its services,” according to CNN. Moral of the story? Don’t mess with passionate fans.
While Grande’s Ticketmaster bug is small compared to the onslaught in the wake of the Eras Tour, I hope to see changes in the site that is known for messing up more than helping fans.