Lollapalooza fans were very frustrated on March 25 and 26, waiting to purchase tickets to this year’s festival located in Grant Park, Chicago August 1 – 3. This year’s headliners include Eminem, Outkast, Kings of Leon, Arctic Monkeys, Skrillex, Calvin Harris and much more.

The Lollapalooza official ticket site keeps buyers on a standby page, which then directs them to the ticket purchase page. As a buyer myself I found the whole process stressful, as they kept buyers on the standby pages for as long as half an hour.

The three-day passes went on sale March 25th even before the lineup was announced. They had completely sold out in under an hour and fans had managed to shut down and break the system for a short time. They announced the 2014 lineup the morning of March 26th, then the single day tickets went on sale, and completely sold out in about two hours. With such a high demand for tickets, many fans found themselves empty handed and upset.

Researching on a few ticket broker sites I soon found over 15,000 tickets being sold for profit. This upsets many music lovers because on the official Lollapalooza website it states that “only wristbands purchased through Front Gate Tickets are valid. If you purchased from an unauthorized source and/or the ticket is counterfeit, you will not be allowed entry.” This upsets many because there is a huge risk of not being able to enter with fake tickets. This makes many people nervous, but they feel there is no other way for them to go to Lollapalooza. With the ticket brokers you shell out more money than the face value and on top of that there is risk that you will not even be allowed entry.

This happens for almost any popular concert or festival. Ticket companies try to limit the amount of tickets people can buy so scalping is less likely, but broker websites know how to cheat the systems.

Senior Cassandra Ortiz was not so lucky on the day of ticket sales, and was very upset when the tickets all sold out. She explained her frustration, saying “it is just not fair that in a matter of minutes all the tickets end up on these broker sites. I understand if someone’s plans change later and they want to sell them but a lot of people are just trying to make extra money which is mean.” I then asked her if she was still planning on buying a ticket from a broker.  “I am nervous that if I buy a ticket and then when I get there they will not let me in, and I would have just wasted a lot of money,” she explained.

Lucky senior Sydney Sirotzki shared how she got her tickets. “I was on spring break in Florida and the internet connection at the condo was not cooperating, so I called a friend from home and she used my card.”

She then shared her feelings on the system. “I feel bad for people without tickets. I also think the system needs some changes that prevents ticket scalpers from buying all the tickets.”

Greedy ticket scalpers are taking the music experience to a whole new level, leaving many festival lovers upset.