Ticketmaster has messed up big time: the company’s president says queue placements aren’t randomized despite previous claims, but it’s still not giving us music fans the explanation we deserve | Tech Radar

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Ticketmaster president says queue placements aren’t randomized despite previous claims, but it’s still not giving us music fans the explanation we deserve

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Ticketmaster's president has revealed that waiting line positions aren't randomized, contradicting a 2018 company post

It's led music fans to believe that the company determines queue placements based on account activity

It adds to the theory that Ticketmaster prioritizes scalpers and resellers over genuine fans

Ticketmaster has found itself in yet another catastrophic sinkhole thanks to its president, who just dropped a massive bombshell about positions in queues.

For years, music fans have been told that queue placements on Ticketmaster are randomized to give everyone a chance at scoring tickets to see their favorite artists. It turns out that the live music behemoth has been lying to our faces.

A conversation on X between Ticketmaster president Saumil Mehta and fan account @lexs_version sparked this, where Mehta replied to the latter’s complaints about queue positions, claiming that he ‘doesn’t know where this notion that queue positions are random came from’. You can read his full reply below.

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I appreciate this feedback. I don’t know where this notion that queue positions are random came from. I have never said it, and I have asked internally and cannot find it written in help content etc. With that said, I do understand where you are coming from. Would it be possible…May 13, 2026

According to Mehta, no such claim had been made by him or anyone at Ticketmaster, but he very quickly met his match when a slurry of accounts pulled up a 2018 post shared by the official Ticketmaster account page explicitly stating that queue placements are randomly assigned (see below). Mehta has gone radio silent ever since, leaving us without an explanation.

This has sparked a new burning question: if Ticketmaster doesn’t randomize queue placements and it doesn’t matter what time you join the online waiting room, what criteria is Ticketmaster using to determine queue numbers?

we got this notion from your company actually! pic.twitter.com/Tyej U3 Oau WMay 13, 2026

In the original X post that started it all, the user addressed the patterns in their waiting line positions when trying to purchase tickets for Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine Tour, claiming that they were placed around the 80,000 mark in every queue they joined. When they tried this on a separate account, every waiting room they joined placed them around the 20,000 mark — resulting in an oddly consistent pattern of placements.

However, this is just one example, and apparently, these consistent queue placements are a common occurrence for a lot of people. This has opened a widespread investigation among music fans who are now pinning it down to one theory: account activity.

This has led users to believe that accounts with higher activity tend to score lower-numbered placements in Ticketmaster’s waiting line, giving them a better chance at purchasing tickets. For example, one user believes that the reason they’ve managed to buy multiple tickets for a single tour is because they use their account to transfer out every ticket they buy to those who are attending the show with them.

adding to this discourse - the reason i saw taylor and am seeing harry/olivia multiple times is my husbands ticketmaster account. he always get queue numbers below 2k, often in the hundreds. the most notable activity on his account? the fact he transfers out EVERY TICKET HE BUYS https://t.co/Pfg SIAQj LUMay 13, 2026

Now, music fans are even more convinced that the company has been prioritizing scalpers and resellers all along because, if we’re basing this on account activity, accounts designed to scam others would need to spend a lot of time purchasing tickets and then going back through Ticketmaster to list them for resale, where they can get away with charging way above face value.

As a result, it means that Ticketmaster can potentially make more money on resale fees, while genuine music fans are left having to pay exorbitant prices on resale tickets, or spend money on VIP tickets and other exclusive packages — a.k.a: the types of tickets that are usually the only ones that are left because of their low demand.

It's still just a theory, and Mehta has neither confirmed nor denied if this is the case, but the longer Mehta stays silent, the more agitated and demanding customers become.

Ticketmaster has been under intense scrutiny since the Eras Tour fiasco, and it hasn't been long since Ticketmaster's parent, Live Nation, was deemed an illegal monopoly — so Mehta's apparent slip-up really is the icing on the cake.

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Rowan is an Editorial Associate and Apprentice Writer for Tech Radar. A recent addition to the news team, he is involved in generating stories for topics that spread across Tech Radar's categories. His interests in audio tech and knowledge in entertainment culture help bring the latest updates in tech news to our readers.

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