From BTS to the Super Bowl: High-Demand Moments Put Digital Accessibility to the Test

When BTS tickets go on sale, the internet feels it.

Millions of fans flood the same websites at once, refreshing pages, entering queues, and racing through checkout flows where seconds matter. These moments are exciting, but they also place intense strain on digital systems.

They’re also far from unique.

In high-demand moments, from concert presales and Super Bowl ticket releases to limited Pokémon card drops, what would normally be a simple online transaction is compressed into a narrow window. Anyone who has tried to buy tickets or a limited product online knows the frustration: pages that freeze, timers that reset, buttons that don’t respond.

For people who rely on screen readers, keyboard navigation, voice input, or other assistive technologies, that frustration isn’t occasional. It’s constant. And in high-demand moments, it can make completing a purchase difficult or impossible.

That experience is familiar to Charles Hiser, a blind screen reader user.

“Recently, I was trying to purchase a ticket for one of my favorite bands, and as soon as I started the process, I was hit with a countdown timer that constantly interrupted my screen reader,” Hiser said. “It left me unable to navigate the process, let alone complete the checkout. It really frustrated me and made me feel excluded from an event that I was super excited about.”

When everything moves quickly, even small accessibility issues, like an unlabeled button or an unannounced timeout, can completely block access.

Sellouts turn access gaps into real costs

Tickets and limited products tied to major cultural moments often sell out in minutes. Fans who miss those brief windows are often pushed into the resale market, where prices can climb far above face value.

For people with disabilities, accessibility barriers can turn missed access into a financial burden.

“High-demand digital moments can reveal just how fragile many online experiences are for people with disabilities,” shared Alisa Smith, Accessibility Evangelist at AudioEye(opens in a new tab). “If the site doesn’t work for them, they don’t just miss out; they may be forced to pay significantly more, or they may lose access altogether.”

This dynamic isn’t limited to concerts or sports. It shows up across collectibles, merchandise drops, and other limited releases where speed determines who succeeds and who doesn’t.

A global audience with different needs

High-demand moments also reflect the scale and diversity of today’s online audiences. Global events attract users across languages, devices, internet speeds, and a wide range of physical and cognitive abilities.

AudioEye’s Digital Accessibility Index(opens in a new tab) (DAI), which analyzed more than 15,000 websites, found that the average page contains 297 accessibility issues. Many of these are tied to navigation, forms, and interactive elements commonly used during high-traffic moments. The DAI points to several common design patterns that can create accessibility barriers during high-demand digital moments, including:

• Checkout flows that rely on strict time limits

• Visual-only indicators for errors or progress

• Complex, multi-step forms that break keyboard navigation

• Security tools that unintentionally block legitimate users

“These patterns aren’t unique to ticketing,” Smith said. “They show up across retail, banking, healthcare, and government services. When a website replaces a physical space, access to that site is access to the experience.”

Accessibility reflects digital readiness

Accessibility isn’t something that should only matter when traffic spikes. It’s a measure of how well a digital experience works, day in and day out, for a wide range of users.

Many of the practices that make experiences more accessible, such as clear navigation, flexible time limits, usable forms, and predictable interactions, also make websites more stable and usable for everyone. When systems are built this way, they tend to perform better not just for people with disabilities, but for anyone navigating a site under pressure.

High-demand moments simply make those differences visible.

Accessibility experts point to foundational practices that strengthen digital experiences overall, such as testing interactions with assistive technologies, ensuring critical actions don’t rely on visual cues alone, and designing flows that allow users to recover if something goes wrong.

Just as importantly, accessibility needs to be treated as an ongoing part of digital operations, not something checked once during design reviews or compliance audits.

“When accessibility is built into how a system is maintained, not just how it’s launched, it’s far more likely to work reliably for everyone,” Smith said.

For businesses and organizations, accessibility is increasingly a measure of how ready their digital systems really are.

High-demand moments, whether ticket presales, major sporting events, or limited product drops, are where the gaps can have an extreme impact on the outcome for a customer with disabilities. But they’re also where preparation pays off.

Because access shouldn’t depend on how fast someone can click, or how much they can afford to pay when they can’t.