Neverland, Brought to You by Ticketmaster

2025 will go down in history as the year millions of Bad Bunny fans saw their dream concert slip through their fingers.

After weeks of cryptic teasers, online clues, TikTok conspiracy theories, and countdowns that gave anxiety even to people who don’t listen to reggaeton, Benito finally dropped the big news: the “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” World Tour. Including Europe.

Tickets recently went on sale and sold out in record time across the globe, leaving behind a trail of disappointment, frustration, and a deep sense of injustice. What really pushed fans over the edge, though, was the surge of digital scalping: tickets bought in bulk by people with zero empathy (and let’s be honest, probably not even fans), who turned around and resold them just hours later at insane prices - sometimes five times the original cost.

That dream -a full stadium, the screaming, the lights, the emotional breakdown and maybe even the drunk call to an ex during “DtMF”- turned into a maddening sprint through a digital jungle. Endless virtual queues, random website crashes, countdowns that drop while you’re still trying to figure out if you’re even in the right line.
Spoiler alert: you’re not. The tickets were gone in seconds.

It was worse than summer exam season stress. The ticket sale was a straight-up nightmare. Ticketmaster, along with Live Nation Spain (which opened early pre-sales), was immediately overwhelmed, with virtual queues stretching to 150,000 people. One hundred and fifty thousand. That’s basically a full stadium... just waiting to get in line.

People spent hours glued to their screens, refreshing every three seconds like a ritual, logging in from multiple devices, setting alarms, begging their bosses for time off, tightening their credit card belts. And still, for many, it didn’t matter. Meanwhile, tickets started popping up on resale platforms within minutes, marked up to outrageous prices.
A £150 ticket? Now going for £750. Because hey, some people will do anything to see their favorite artist at least once in their life. But at what cost?

A screenshot from the online line during the sales . Courtesy of Raandoom

Scalping isn’t new. But the digital age has made it a plague.
Bots -automated software- snatch up bulk tickets the moment they go on sale, only to flip them on secondary markets at outrageous markups. And it’s not just bots anymore. Real people are in on the game too.

Which makes this not just a market issue, but an emotional hit job. A legalized scam targeting the most vulnerable link in the chain: the fans.

People who save for months. Who dream of that one moment, a shared scream of joy, a chorus of strangers who feel like family. Who instead find themselves chasing after tickets at indecent prices. They go into debt. They make sacrifices. They gamble on shady websites with strange names such as “superliveeventiok2025.net” and hope for the best.

Some get scammed. Others give up. And who wins? Always the same people - the ones who don’t even care about the music, just the money.

The Bad Bunny gate is just the latest symptom of a sick system - one where feelings are for sale and dreams are profit opportunities. It’s not just about Ticketmaster.
The entire ticketing ecosystem has become a ruthless machine, incapable of telling the difference between passion and profit.

Over time, these platforms have built higher and higher walls instead of tearing them down. Early access for newsletter subscribers, credit card holders, “premium” members. Then there are VIP packages, with early entry, comfy seats, backstage passes.
Sounds nice, sure. But who can actually afford that?

There’s something painfully symbolic in all of this. Because even when it comes to something as simple as buying a concert ticket, you’re forced to compete.
In the desperate scramble to get into the virtual waiting room to live out the dream of dancing to “BAILE INoLVIDABLE”, you can hear the echo of a bigger competition - the one we’re all stuck in every day. For a job. For a home. For a loan. For a dream.

The frustration fans feel isn’t just about missing a concert or paying double. It’s about losing, once again, to a system that’s faster, richer, and always one step ahead. It’s the feeling of being invisible. Of mattering less than the kid who bought eight tickets in a second just to resell them in university group chats. Some people have started to say, “It’s just how it is.” But it’s not. It can’t be. We’re normalizing injustice.

Then there are those who, flexing their financial privilege, shrug it off: “If you really care, you’ll pay”. But that line reeks of arrogance. You pay if you can.
Love for music should never be a matter of income. A concert shouldn’t be a luxury. It should be a form of expression, of belonging. A cultural right. When concerts become accessible only to the wealthy, they turn into shows for the elite - and everyone else’s dreams turn into nightmares. But this isn’t just about Bad Bunny. It’s about all of us. It’s about how dreams are packaged, sold, and resold. About how emotion is turned into currency. About how technology, instead of democratizing culture, is turning it into an exclusive club.

As long as someone out there is crying over a ticket, this fight isn’t over.