The Cost of Fandom: Are Fans Being Unfairly Priced-Out?

Since the birth of social media, fandom has been a place for teenagers, young people and people from all generations to enjoy the music, television shows and franchises they love without judgement. However, with the birth of subgroups like stan Twitter, has been an unspoken judgement against those who wouldn’t spend all of their pocket money on meeting or buying products their idol sold. 

On top of that, the rate of inflation in the past year has skyrocketed in all aspects of life. The rate of inflation for the UK in July 2023 was 6.8%, which is higher than some other European countries. For UK fans, this has made some aspects of fandom unaffordable, especially for the larger demographic of fandoms, which tends to be millennials and Gen-Z. 

This is a problem in itself because both generations are prominent users of the internet, and so the snobbery and isolation between fans who can and can’t afford to spend money on fandom online has grown.

There’s an expectation in many fandoms today, particularly for the music fandom to spend money on merchandise, the best concert tickets and preorders, which can all come at a premium price because of supply and demand. In the eyes of some, if you can’t do that, “you’re not a real fan”. The whole concept is insane, to think spending all of your money, even as an adult could, result in you being able to prove you’re as big of a fan as someone behind a faceless account. 

That doesn’t mean that fans aren’t fighting back against the expensive aspects of fandom though. Recently there has been outrage from Swifties at the resale ticket prices for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour on Ticketmaster and AXS on the European leg of the tour. Prices for VIP Packages such as the It’s Been a Long Time Coming Package racked up to over £600.

This wasn’t the worst part, though, as when some fans frantically joined the virtual queues a few weeks ago, the sites crashed and some fans on Twitter made complaints about AXS throwing them out of the queue.

Experts, however, have said that this is primarily because somehow bots have been able to bypass certain security measures set up by AXS and Ticketmaster. For the tour, both companies encouraged fans to sign up for a presale code via email for the general ticket sale if they hadn’t already bought tickets. Then they sent out emails to fans who registered on time to tell them if they had received a code to enable them to join the purchasing queue or if they had been waitlisted, meaning they would have to wait for the resale. Of the resale ticket prices, Ticketmaster said:

“Through the official resale facilities, ticket resale prices are capped to help combat the inflation of ticket prices and put a stop to ticket touting and bots.” 

This hasn’t stopped the insane resale prices on other questionable ticket sites like Stub Hub and Zalando and the bots that are gathering there.

So yes, fandom is becoming unaffordable for the average person economically, as well as emotionally. Going back to Taylor Swift, it seems like in the eyes of some you need to purchase extra merchandise or extras to be considered worthy of receiving tickets from the lottery that is online selling sites. Even through Taylor Swift’s official website, those who preordered her album had access to the earliest ticket sales for the UK leg of her tour. There’s an underlying message that to get the perks of being someone’s fan, you must spend money. Ordering their album isn’t the most outrageous thing in the world; if you love an artist, you should support their work. 

For Swifties, knowing what Taylor Swift went through with having almost her entire discography stolen makes the dilemma much more difficult.

It isn’t just the concert aspect of fandom that seems to be relieving fans of their money. In the last ten years, meet and greet prices for social media stars and celebrities seem to of shot up as fandom has become synonymous with girlhood.

Many fandoms host exclusive meet and greet opportunities and conventions which tend to be a yearly experience. You may think of ComiCon when meet and greets come to mind, but plenty of television shows and influencer companies have hosted their own conventions. On top of paying for tickets and meet and greet packages, some fans will also be paying for travel and accommodation fees because these events tend to take place in major cities. 

In the UK for example, when British YouTubers were all the rage, they would attend YouTube conventions such as Summer in the City which was held at Alexandra Palace in London and later, they hosted their own event, Hello World, where VIP tickets were up to £99.00. At this time, the British YouTube crew were some of the most internet-famous individuals in the UK, and everybody between the ages of 12 to 17 knew who they were. At the time, the convention was highly anticipated by teenagers across the UK. The organisers apologised after many fans complained online about the prices and the operations of the event. Zoella herself said her anxiety played a part in her role to not be at the front and centre of the event, which is perfectly reasonable. However, in 2017 even, there was not as big of an advocation for protecting your mental health online, and so many fans who had paid their hard-earned money to hang out with the YouTubers didn’t see this as acceptable, let alone affordable!

But there is the debate that in particular teenage girls like those who were obsessed with beauty and internet boys at the time propelled these YouTubers to levels of fame where they and their management felt they could charge this amount for a convention.

The same principle can be applied to concerts, the price of merchandise or photo ops. If devoted fans are willing to pay the price, then the artists, YouTubers and actors and their management will be able to charge more for their services. In turn, this pushes the price of fandom up making it unaffordable for many fans who just want to bask in the glow of their idols.

University graduate Shannon Rolph was once a part of the fandom of YouTubers, Harry Potter and artists and she says it’s too expensive for younger fans as many famous people have a young age demographic as their fanbase.

“I think it’s too expensive now especially considered the age demographic of people in the fandoms is very young and the prices have only continued to rise. It brings in class disparities between fans because unless you’re from a family with sufficient disposable income, you’re not going to be able to afford merch, concert tickets etc as a teen.”

Again, the topic of Taylor Swift’s eras tour becomes the forefront of conversation in this debate concerning unaffordable fandom. As the US leg of the tour has already reported to have made a whopping $1 billion in revenue, it begs the question do ticket prices really need to be that high, especially when a large part of your female fan base are teenage girls and children? 

Now if you do consider that there is a diverse range of fandoms out there, price disparity is likely to only affect a portion of fandoms, and not all. Inflation has risen significantly at the moment in the UK in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis where people are struggling to live, the price of fandom is not going to be their biggest issue. The wider scope of the issue is that with a diverse range of fandoms, price fluctuations are going to depend on the product or service that the fan wishes to access. For example, if you’re a fan of anime, you might not think twice about your subscription to Crunchy Roll because it will be worth it to have access to a catalogue of anime series. 

Whereas if you are a fan of a big artist who for the first time, decides to do a concert in your country, it’s likely ticket prices for the concert will be significantly higher, due to the artist not having been to that country before and as there will be a higher demand. Fandom itself cannot be generally classed as unaffordable in all areas. Subscriptions feel more voluntary because there are ways that tech-savvy fans can get around them if they cannot afford to purchase the streaming service or it’s not available in their country. The days of Putlocker and 123 Movies are not behind us yet!

Alternatively, the bond that female fandom has created has created an eternal sisterhood for some fans. Many fans make lifelong friends online and share with each other the unfortunate burden of unaffordable fandom. There has been a drastic increase of fan-made and fan-generated content online for specific fandoms, it’s really only a problem when creators go overboard with trying to commercialise it. 

Fan-art has become a huge part of pairings for fans of book series, television shows and movies. Twitter is a hub where fan accounts share their fan art usually free of charge where fans of certain ships and characters can immerse themselves in an abstract world. They can be easily found through specific hashtags and those who are mutuals will be likely to see their friends’ work anyway.

Those who aren’t fans of visual fandom can get their fandom fix from fanfictions on popular sites like Wattpad and Archive of Our Own. In 2022, Archive of Our Own had a huge increase in works written by fans, with the most popular fanfiction pairing being Minecraft youtubers Wilbur Soot and Tommyinnit with over 9387 new works. Many of the fan favourites were also from Harry Potter, Supernatural and other Minecraft pairings. 

So it is clear that fans can still express themselves freely on these sites to enrich parts of their fandom experience. After all, Archive of Our Own do not currently charge a subscription or a sign-up fee for authors, and there are no limits to what fans can write about. The website’s directory includes categories for celebrities and real people, TV shows, movies, anime and manga, books and literature, cartoons, comics, graphic novels and more. There is no alienation in this element of fandom and those who cannot always afford to meet their idols often use these forms of media as a way to show their passion for their idol.

One of the only exceptions to the rule could be for those who attend fandom conventions, where cosplay is encouraged. These fans may feel left out if they don’t take the opportunity to dress up as their favourite 

Perhaps the more expensive part of fandom for those who love to get lost in the fantasy of fictional characters is through cosplay. Cosplay costume materials can be dear for specialist costumes from franchises like Star Wars or Star Trek. 

In the grand scheme of fandom, fans have autonomy over what kind of fan they want to be. In terms of whether fandom is unaffordable, it is a pretty nuanced argument. As there are so many tiers and varieties of fandom, it is hard to classify whether fandom has become too expensive. There are many factors that can be points of contention with fans such as their disposable income, price expectations, and the level of commitment that they display to being in a fandom. 

There are ways for fans to connect with their idol without excessive spending through social media followings, online mutual followers, fan art, fanfiction and online streaming. The bottom line is the level of expense depends on the branch of fandom a person is in, what products are offered in that fandom, and how much individuals are willing to spend on them.