Last month, Fan Alliance in partnership with Cash or Trade brought together a small but mighty group — “fan influencers,” as we called them — volunteers who create, moderate and lead large artist and genre Facebook communities. Representing pages ranging from 10K to 80K members, their collective reach topped 200,000 fans.
We wanted to hear directly from them: as passionate listeners, as community builders, and as the kind of people Fan Alliance exists to mobilize.
The 90-minute conversation was moderated by Andy Bernstein — founder and former Executive Director of HeadCount, now a consultant and strategist across a range of music related projects, and President of the Divided Sky Foundation, Trey Anastasio’s non-profit organization supporting individuals in recovery.
The discussion got lively fast. What follows are excerpts worth reading. It’s a long read but full of issues and insights about how fans are experiencing today’s music economy. Get in touch if you know of other fan pages that would want to get in on the conversation.
Andy: We want to start with some broad questions about what it’s like to be a music fan today. What’s frustrating? What’s better than ever? What is your sense both for yourself and the people in the groups who are reading the content that you are administering? What’s the state of affairs for being a music fan in 2026?
“Everyone’s having troubles with the economy and fuel prices getting to and from shows, lodging, all that added cost on top of, ticket costs with all the extra fees getting added on from ticket fees is the main complaints I’m getting from my fan group.” Chris
“What I hear a lot, it’s more the ticket fees I think that **** people off. Because I think that a lot of fans recognize that like the cost to produce an event or a festival has gone up. And so, we’re going to see that in higher prices. And I think that does price people out. I think that the frustration is that I’m buying a $35 ticket and it has $17 fees. So, it’s like 50% on top of that. And then you go and you pay for parking. It just makes the whole experience less affordable.” – Nicola
“Another thing is people just are tired of fighting with bots. Like, bots are taking up all the tickets before anybody can get anything. And that’s really frustrating for people.” – Kayla
“Wh
at Bonnaroo was seven years ago is not the same Bonnaroo as what people know of it today.” — Shaina (note: Live Nation now owns Bonnaroo.)
“Lots of festivals that used to be a bit more underground… got bought by these big companies. We see a lot of changes that come from that, including the price hikes.” — Nicola
Andy: In the dialogue on the forums you host, how much are people talking about ticketing? What are the specific issues that people are encountering?
“I think the first thought that the first word that came to mind was just expensive. It’s just expensive.” – Emily
“I hear a lot of I hear a lot of grumbling about I was in the queue for this long and I couldn’t get tickets or by the time I got there, the prices were crazy. Like, I spent all this time only to get to a place where I couldn’t even buy the tickets because they were so insanely priced.” — Emily
“More and more people I know personally that are trying to buy tickets are getting flagged as bots more than the bots are getting flagged. You can’t even be on your WIFI at work because they think you’re on a VPN.” — Chris
“It’s like how frustrating it is to be like 30,000th in the queue and you’ve been actually sitting there for half an hour before the on-sale. It just seems so impossible sometimes to get tickets to shows.” — Justin
“Their production value has really gone up. Artists are really trying to put on good theatrical shows and that costs money. And while the fans enjoy the show, they’re also upset because that’s a lot of money for them too. The fans get artists have to make money but with the economy right now, it’s just, it’s really tough.” — Kayla
Andy: I hear you all talking a lot about what we call the primary market when you’re buying the ticket from the actual seller. What about the secondary market? StubHub, Vivid Seats. etc. Is that something that fans are talking about?
“Buying tickets on the secondary market is the devil’s playground. We hear a lot of judgment, a lot of hate towards the secondary market for sure.” — Emily
“If people buy tickets off StubHub, it just creates grounds for peopleto scalp, buy all these tickets up and resell them at a higher price. We always say don’t use those sites because they are trying to make double their money on screwing you over – the people who actually care about the music.” — Nicola
“We don’t advocate to buy secondhand unless you know the person or you go in person to do the ticket sales. Because I’ve seen time and time again, people, even myself included, where I’ve gotten scammed over a ticket, especially with StubHub, where I buy a ticket, I show up, yeah, this ticket doesn’t work.” — Shaina
Andy: “Do you think AI-generated music is something fans care about and will take up?”
“A lot of music is turning out to be AI. The music that they’re suggesting to you — you end up liking it, and you look them up, and it turns out they don’t even exist. It’s not a real person. I want to listen to real people making real music.” — Kayla
” I think a lot of people just really aren’t aware that that’s going on quite yet. But as more artists are talking about it, people are learning more about it and they don’t like that.” — Kayla
The conversation shifted to challenges touring artists are facing.
“Some artists pay to book a place, they also have to factor in mind like traveling to that venue, also lodging, or are they staying in a bus? Are they staying in a hotel? Are they flying? How are they getting there? And who helps them book to get to these specific places?” — Shaina
“One of the ba
nds going to play at Gizz’s Festival (King Gizzard) this summer — they’re from Nigeria and they can’t come. They can’t get visas.” Representing KingGizzard, an Australian band, that international perspective has brought a lot of questions as to like, ‘what in the hell is going on in your country?’ ” Justin
Andy: So ultimately, the Fan Alliance is trying to figure out how do we reverse course on some of these things that are making music very challenging to access? And then how do we work with folks like you to find solutions and empower music fans, mobilize and organize music fans in the same way Donald spent his career organizing with unions and advocacy groups. And in the same way I spent my career getting music fans voting. How do we organize fans to make a fairer, more equitable, more enjoyable music economy?
“I think fans want ways to support their bands that are outside of the ticket sales. That’s why merchandising is so big — people just want something, and they want to feel like I’m supporting the band by doing this.'” And I think that there should be, and maybe, I don’t know if Fan Alliance is the organization, but I think there should be some way that fans can contribute to supporting smaller acts, supporting bringing more music, helping those smaller bands travel, etc.” — Justin
“Give me the talking points and give me the calls to action that I can pass on to other people. When I have specific language I can use and simple calls to action, I have something to give people.” — Emily
“If the call to action was ‘write your congressperson,’ would folks do that? I think they would if they feel like it impacts them.” — Nicola
Andy: Is it natural that there’s just going to be a very different perspective between what’s important to the artist and what’s important to the fan? Or are there ways to break that down and get everybody in it together?
“I think that’s the million-dollar question on some level. I’m grateful for Fan Alliance for even, you know, opening the conversation because I just don’t think it happens as much as nearly as much as it should. And it’s frustrating, but I don’t know that anybody feels like they have any power to change it.” – Emily
“I do see a lot of artists sharing their disdain for how crazy pricing has gotten to be and how bad the scalping is going to be. I think that that is somewhere that the artists and the fans do intersect.” Nicola
Finishing up (although we all wanted to keep talking!)
Andy: You all are the sort of both unrecognized heroes and also really very important in the music ecosystem, that the fans who lead other fans, who share information, who do the hard work to create these communities. You are all so incredibly essential to so many people’s fan experience.
I think from Fan Alliance standpoint and just my standpoint, I think we should do this again at some point, maybe not as a focus group, but just to conspire to change the world group
Stay tuned!
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