If you’re a fan of Ariana Grande, were you lucky enough to get tickets to one of her 2026 tour shows? If not, you’re in good company: reportedly, more than one million people were queued up on Ticketmaster for the presale, and over six million overall across the whole of North America.
One woman managed to get the concert tickets for herself and her friends, but one friend had trouble paying her back. As time went on, she grew more and more frustrated and considered selling the BFF’s ticket to another friend. Torn, she asked the internet whether doing that would be a jerk move.
A woman bought her friend group tickets to see Ariana Grande next year
Image credits: Cason Asher / unsplash (not the actual photo)
But one friend kept making excuses and wouldn’t pay her back
Image credits: sloomstudio / envato (not tne actual photo)
Image credits: messageinabottle15
Lending friends money is always tricky, and sometimes it may even cost the friendship
When you’re short on cash, who are the first people you’re going to? Friends and family, most likely. The bad thing is that they might not pay you back. In the UK, 33% of adults say they’re owed money either by a colleague, a family member, or a friend. And most never get that money back because it’s just too awkward to bring the loan up and keep pestering the other person.
So, are all the times when you lend a friend some money doomed? As licensed psychotherapist Barton Goldsmith, Ph.D., LMFT writes for Psychology Today, “If you want to lose a friend, lend them money.” And a fairly recent poll proves that: 20% of Americans say they’ve ended a friendship because of disputes over money.
It’s not like people are borrowing thousands of dollars and then leaving their friends dry. It’s more about keeping up with their friends’ lifestyles that they can’t afford. Going out for dinner, buying fancy clothes, and going to concerts add up over time, and the expenses are just too much for the person to handle.
In that same survey, almost two out of three respondents said they spend money they can’t afford on social activities with friends. The top three ways people overspend with friends are dining out, birthday celebrations, and buying clothes and beauty products.
Finance expert Lindsay Bryan-Podvin told CNBC Make It that people should not be afraid to tell their friends about their financial boundaries. If they’re your real friends, they’ll understand that friendship isn’t measured by income.
“[With] my friend who cares about me and my wellbeing and my financial goals, I can trust that I can say to them, ‘Hey, I can’t [buy] VIP Beyoncé tickets with you,'” Bryan-Podvin added.
With the ever-rising ticket costs, attending concerts is becoming a luxury
If you’re a fan of live music and performances, you probably know that there’s a lot of discussion about how concert tickets are becoming unaffordable. After Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino’s recent incredibly out-of-touch comments that concerts are “underpriced,” music fans are perhaps angrier than ever.
He claimed that the average ticket price is around $72. Yet, as Business Insider reports, the average price of a concert ticket for the top 100 tours in 2024 was $135.92. In 2019, the average was $96.17 and $25.81 in 1996.
In a 1993 interview for MTV, Nirvana members were astonished to learn that tickets to see Madonna cost $50, while they only charged $17 (taking inflation into account, today that would be $34.93).
But today’s world is very different: there’s dynamic pricing algorithms, all sorts of hidden fees, and scalpers. Some artists are willing to intervene and opt out of dynamic pricing. Ariana Grande, for example, decided to opt out for her Eternal Sunshine Tour, and so did Taylor Swift for her Eras Tour.
Yet that doesn’t solve the situation either. For Grande’s upcoming tour, there were plenty of tickets with inflated prices available on resale platforms even before tickets at face value were available. As of now, the resale prices for seats in the upper bowl vary from around $400 to over $600.
The saddest part is that not much can be done about it. The tickets for Grande’s tour were sold out in minutes in the U.S. and less than in 15 minutes in the UK. She addressed the situation in a post on social media, writing: “i care very much and [me and my team] will do, and are doing, everything we can.”
And it’s not like the friend was broke: “She doesn’t drive, doesn’t have a job, and her parents pay for her expenses”
Some netizens sided with the author: “She is the one who is not listening”
Others thought this was a great opportunity to help a friend in need: “Money comes and goes”
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