It’s easy to say that this last month has been an excellent time to be a Blink-182 fan. On October 11th, 2022, founding member, Tom DeLonge announced that he was returning to the band, after leaving in 2014. Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio fame joined in 2015, and together they released California in 2016, California (Deluxe) in 2017, and NINE in 2019. Depending on whose asked, reception on these “Matt Skiba-era” albums will vary but unanimously it is agreed that they are albums that exist.

After DeLonge left, the band consistently toured and released new music. Then in April of 2021, bassist/singer Mark Hoppus announced that he had lymphoma. He was open with his “cancer journey” from then on, and he’s been cancer free since September 29th, 2021. 

In a social media post addressed to Skiba, DeLonge publicly stated that “Mark’s cancer really put things in perspective” along with the announcement of his return, a new single, and a new album. An album that drummer Travis Barker has been building much anticipation around, going as far as to tweet “This new blink-182 album is [mind-blown emoji],” which has some fans excited and others taking it with a grain of salt. 

Tickets for the tour went on sale on October 17th and fans were met with higher prices than expected, and those who could afford tickets were left waiting in a queue only for their purchase to not go through. “I bought tickets for two of our shows myself just to see what the experience was like,” Hoppus stated on Discord, “I had tickets yoinked from my cart and the whole thing crashed out. Dynamic pricing. I’m not in charge of it. It’s meant to discourage scalpers.” 

The dynamic pricing tactic is something that Ticketmaster is infamous for, it’s claimed that the practice is meant to give more money back to the artist and discourage scalpers. Reasonable on the surface but that has not stopped fans from expressing their disappointment in the high prices. 

Twitter user @smolpashqueen stated, “I understand it’s been 10+ years since the original blink-182 has played a show together, but who can justify paying almost $800 for pit tickets?”

The prices have since dropped to what many consider reasonable, and they have consistently been selling out shows. Their 2023-2024 world tour begins on March 11th, 2023 in Tijuana, Mexico, and is set to go on until February 26th, 2024 in Christchurch, New Zealand. New shows and new dates are likely to be added in the near future.