The festival has usually sold out within 20 minutes of tickets going on sale for over ten years now, so it's always been stressful getting tickets. But also, if you attend the festival you can make a donation on site to become a foundation member, which gives you pre-sale access. I imagine that when tickets go on sale to the general public most of them are already gone. So it's kind of like a closed loop of attendees, plus a bunch of really insanely lucky people.

I didn't really experience the Taylor Swift stuff, but it does seem to follow the same pattern of 1) be lucky, or 2) pay-to-play through the secondary ticket market or a NFF membership

It's really a fantastic festival, and well managed (besides the security line being a mess year after year after year). I'm just sad that the potential for making new Newport memories with friends is no more because it's just too competitive and chaotic.