Olivia Dean Ticketmaster

Olivia Dean performing live. Photo Credit: Harald Krichel

Introducing Live Nation’s latest critic: Olivia Dean, who’s accused the Ticketmaster parent (plus AEG Presents) of “providing a disgusting service” and allowing tickets to be resold for “vile” prices.

Dean lambasted Live Nation/Ticketmaster in an Instagram story this afternoon, after tickets for the North American leg of her Art of Loving Live tour went on sale to the public. Scheduled to kick off in April, the 54-concert series had previously sold out several of its European dates.

Even so, the way Dean sees things, there’s little indeed to love at present – what with Live Nation allegedly enabling ticket sales at prices that are “completely against” her wishes.

In a comparatively tame opening message, the 26-year-old artist didn’t mention Live Nation, Ticketmaster, or AEG at all, instead acknowledging a general “issue with ticket re-selling and pricing.”

“hello world!” Olivia Dean wrote in the initial post. “i’m sorry that there seems to be an issue with ticket re-selling and pricing. my team are currently looking into it. it is extremely frustrating as the last thing i want is for anyone to be scammed or overcharged for our show : (

“please be wary of buying tickets in the comment sections as it is most likely a scam,” the London native concluded.

We don’t know the details of any subsequent (or prior) discussions between Dean’s core team and the promoters. But whatever conversations might have followed, they definitely didn’t stop the prompt publication of a more direct story yet.

“@ticketmaster @livenation @aegpresents you are providing a disgusting service,” Dean vented in the second message. “the prices at which you’re allowing tickets to be re-sold is vile and completely against our wishes.

“live music should be affordable and accessible and we need to find a new way of making that possible. BE BETTER,” she finished.

It probably won’t come as a surprise that the comments (and the resulting feedback from Dean diehards) didn’t sit right with Ticketmaster, which quickly returned fire in a story of its own.

“We support artists’ ability to set the terms of how their tickets are sold and resold,” Ticketmaster wrote. “@oliviadeano, we will cap resale prices on our site at face value and hope other resale sites will follow.”

Problem solved? Not exactly: Would-be customers are seemingly unable to buy tickets via Ticketmaster, with a post-queue message noting that “[t]ickets are sold out now.”

And per Variety, Dean’s Art of Loving Live resale passes look to have been “taken down across all sites” – or at least all Ticketmaster sites.

But competitors are still offering secondhand passes, and sale proposals are continuing to pour onto social platforms, which, of course, lack buyer protections and could be used to scam unsuspecting superfans.

On X, for instance, a curious number of prospective sellers are claiming to have accidentally purchased (don’t you hate it when that happens?) far too many tickets to a tour that isn’t scheduled to touch down in the U.S. until July 2026.

In the bigger picture, it doesn’t really need saying that Dean’s criticism (and similar remarks from Jack Antonoff and others) isn’t helping Live Nation and Ticketmaster as they fend off a DOJ antitrust lawsuit, a separate FTC suit concerning “illegal ticket resale tactics,” a BOTS Act probe, and regulatory scrutiny across the pond.