Dimension 20 opts out of controversial Ticketmaster pricing after ticket costs climb past $2K (2024)

It seems like the perfect concept: Dimension 20’s Unsleeping City, an actual play campaign about the secret magical underbelly of New York City, played live in front of a paying audience at the Big Apple’s hall of halls, Madison Square Garden, for one epic night of adventure — an event dubbed “Gauntlet at the Garden.”

But maybe it’s just too perfect to exist in a world with Ticketmaster, as many prospective showgoers discovered this week when the conglomerate’s dynamic pricing system kicked in, sending the cost of some single tickets skyrocketing past $2,000. The Dimension 20 crew and parent company Dropout issued a statement on Sunday, writing that they had requested that Ticketmaster cease using dynamic pricing for these tickets, and outlining measures to address fan frustration.

Ticketmaster, a company whose Wikipedia page has a “Criticism and controversies” section with no fewer than 13 subsections at the time of this writing and a “See also” section that includes the concept of monopoly itself, merged with events promoter Live Nation in 2010. Its dynamic pricing system employs an algorithm to adjust prices on tickets for “Official Platinum Seats” in real time, as demand rises and falls, without a clear ceiling. This can result in ticket prices multiple times greater than those set by the artist or performer.

In a statement posted Sunday on Dimension 20’s social media accounts, the Dimension 20 cast explained that the dynamic pricing system and platinum tickets “had not been something explained to us, nor something presented as something we had the ability to opt out of - once we had a better understanding of the situation as a group, we communicated to Live Nation that it was our desire to opt out of all dynamic pricing tickets for this event & for all events going forward.”

Overall, Dimension 20’s statement noted, of the more than 15,000 “Gauntlet at the Garden” tickets sold so far, the average cost was $119. “Gauntlet” will also be filmed and made available to stream on Dropout.tv at a later date.

Dynamic pricing has drawn the ire of Ticketmaster’s customers since its implementation in 2022, particularly around concert tours for the likes of Bink-182, Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, Harry Styles, and Taylor Swift — and it has even received pushback from performers themselves, like The Cure’s Robert Smith. Ticketmaster avers that dynamic pricing is a deterrent to the behavior of ticket scalpers: It’s difficult to buy tickets at face value and resell them at a markup if, when demand is hot, tickets already cost much more than the sticker price. “Dynamic pricing is about capturing more value for the artist,” a spokesperson told the New Statesman in 2022.

But it’s no wonder that many ticket buyers feel that these Platinum Seats are simply incorporating a mercenary practice into a mandatory system. This issue is compounded for customers and artists by how difficult it is to avoid working with Ticketmaster entirely. A 2023 study by the American Economic Liberties Project found that Live Nation “uses its promoter and artist management business lines as bargaining chips to gain exclusive contracts with venues.” Its position in the marketplace is further enhanced by the fact that Ticketmaster/Live Nation handles ticket sales for “78% of the top grossing arenas” in the U.S., including Madison Square Garden.

In addition to its comments on dynamic pricing, Dimension 20’s statement outlined an upcoming lottery system for fans, dubbed “Dimensioneer Tickets,” in which “selected individuals will have the opportunity to buy up to two tickets for $35/each (for seats placed all over the event space, including the best seats in the house).” More information on the lottery will be released “soon,” according to the statement.

In the meantime, we’ll be watching to see exactly what happens in the live D&D scene now that a D&D live show sold more than 15,000 tickets to one of the most storied U.S. arenas in less than a week.