- Ticketmaster’s president has revealed that queue positions are not randomized, contradicting a 2018 company post
- This has led music fans to believe that the company determines queue positions based on account activity
- It adds to the theory that Ticketmaster prioritizes scalpers and dealers over true fans
Ticketmaster has found itself in yet another catastrophic sinkhole thanks to its president, who has just dropped a massive bomb about positions in queues.
For years, music fans have been told that queue positions on Ticketmaster are randomized to give everyone a chance to score tickets to see their favorite artists. It turns out that the live music behemoth has lied to our faces.
A conversation on X between Ticketmaster president Saumil Mehta and the fan account @lexs_version sparked this, with Mehta responding to the latter’s complains about queue positions, claiming he ‘doesn’t know where this notion that queue positions are random’ came from. You can read his full response below.
I appreciate this feedback. I don’t know where this notion of queue positions being random came from. I’ve never said that, and I’ve asked internally and can’t find it written in help content, etc. That said, I understand where you’re coming from. Would it be possible…13 May 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 roundup of accounts pulled up a 2018 post shared by the official Ticketmaster account page that expressly states that queue locations 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 locations and it doesn’t matter when you register for the online waiting room, what criteria does Ticketmaster use to determine queue numbers?
we actually got this idea from your company! pic.twitter.com/TyejU3OauW13 May 2026
The hole only gets deeper
In the original X post that started it all, the user addressed the patterns of their wait positions when trying to buy tickets to Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine Tour, claiming 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 a strangely consistent pattern of placements.
However, this is just an example and apparently these consistent queue placements are a common occurrence for many people. This has opened up 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 positions in the Ticketmaster queue, giving them a better chance of purchasing tickets. For example, one user believes that the reason they have been able to buy multiple tickets for a single ride is because they use their account to transfer each ticket they buy to those attending the show with them.
adding to this discourse – the reason i watched taylor and watch harry/olivia multiple times is my husband’s ticketmaster account. he always gets gender numbers below 2k, often in the hundreds. the most notable activity on his account? the fact that he transfers EVERY TICKET HE BUYS https://t.co/PfgSIAQjLU13 May 2026
Now, music fans are even more convinced that the company has prioritized scalpers and dealers all along, because if we base this on account activity, accounts designed to scam others would have to spend a lot of time buying tickets and then going back through Ticketmaster to list them for resale, where they can get away with paying way over face value.
As a result, this means that Ticketmaster can potentially make more money from resale fees, while genuine music fans will have to pay exorbitant prices for resale tickets or spend money on VIP tickets and other exclusive packages – aka: the types of tickets that are usually the only ones left due to their low demand.
It’s still just a theory, and Mehta has neither confirmed nor denied whether it’s the case, but the longer Mehta stays silent, the more agitated and demanding the customers become.
Ticketmaster has been under intense scrutiny since the Eras Tour fiasco, and it wasn’t long ago that Ticketmaster’s parent, Live Nation, was deemed an illegal monopoly — so Mehta’s apparent downfall is really icing on the cake.
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