Tickets for Olivia Dean‘s 2026 tour were on sale for only about four hours before she decided she had enough on Friday. At around 2 p.m. ET, she posted the following to her Instagram story: “[Ticketmaster], [Live Nation], [AEG]: You are providing a disgusting service. The prices at which you’re allowing tickets to be re-sold is vile and completely against our wishes. Live music should be affordable and accessible, and we need to find a new way of making that possible. BE BETTER.”
About an hour earlier, she’d taken the high road with a separate Instagram story. “I’m sorry that there seems to be an issue with ticket re-selling and pricing,” she wrote at around 1 p.m. “My team are currently looking into it. It is extremely frustrating as the last thing I want is for anyone to be scammed or overcharged for our show. Please be wary buying tickets in the comment sections as it is most likely a scam.”
At the time of publication, what’s left of the tickets for the Baltimore date of Dean’s Art of Loving tour on Ticketmaster range from $54 to $166; no verified resell tickets were available for Baltimore or Dean’s sold-out Madison Square Garden dates. The price range for the Charm City show on StubHub goes from $202 to $507.
Whoever runs social media for Ticketmaster in times of crisis was quick to respond to one of pop’s fastest rising stars putting them on blast. At around 3:00, the ticketing agent reposted Dean’s invective to their Instagram story with this response: “We support artists’ ability to set the terms of how their tickets are sold and resold,” it said. “[Olivia Dean], we will cap resale prices on our site at face value and hope other resale sites will follow.” (StubHub, whom Dean did not place on blast, has not posted a response to their socials, though its Insta story included screenshot an X post from @concertleaks proclaiming Dean’s to be the “#1 most in-demand event in the world on StubHub.”)
Reps for Ticketmaster, Live Nation, and AEG did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.
“Fans and artists are right to call out a broken system, but fixing it means addressing the cause, not just the symptoms,” a rep for StubHub tells Rolling Stone. “The problem starts with a monopoly that controls how many tickets go on sale, what fans pay, and where they can buy them. StubHub doesn’t set prices. We give fans shut out by long virtual queues or sold-out shows a safe and secure way to get to the events they love, all backed by our FanProtect Guarantee.”
Watching her fans experience what she considers price gouging must have been frustrating for Dean since when she announced the tour, she seemed pretty stoked to get on the road. “These are venues I have only dreamt of playing,” Dean wrote on Instagram at the time. “See you next year lovers!!!”
Regardless of what you pay, Dean’s North American tour is set to kick off in San Francisco in July before wrapping in Austin the following month.
