South Carolina Family Falls Victim To Shady Scalpers In Search For Taylor Swift Tickets
Looking for Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets? Join the club of millions of others. Tickets have been sold out since day one. And as someone who has worked in both the radio and venue side of the music industry for the past several years, people often as me about buying tickets for events. More specifically resale tickets. And my advice is always to proceed with caution. A lot of caution. I’m also going to preface this by saying that I am 100% in favor of scalping being illegal.
Resale Tickets
In my opinion, the only way I’d support any resale sites is through the original point-of-purchase platform directly. They will have a record of what the tickets were purchased for. They should be able to be sold at that price and that price only. This would take away the incentive of scalpers making it easier for actual fans to purchase tickets in the first place. It would eliminate the outrageous prices charged, but would still provide an option if fans aren’t able to attend at the last minute. I also support making tickets nontransferable and canceling any tickets that show up on resale sites.
Unfortunately, it’s become more about selling tickets to anyone than filling seats. Which is a shame. But back to my advice. My first piece of advice is always to try to purchase tickets directly from the venue or venue-sponsored ticketing platform. Ticketmaster for one has resale tickets available on their site. This is the safest way to go about it as they have the records of the actual tickets. My second piece of advice was more common before the days of electronic tickets. If you are buying from a scalper on the street- make them walk you to the gate, scan one ticket (assuming you’re purchasing two) and then pay them after that first ticket scans. A person trying to scam you won’t go with you. If the tickets are legit they will have no problem doing this. And my third option I tell people, is StubHub.
Why StubHub over other resale sites? The StubHub guarantee:
StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee Print
Buy tickets with confidence:
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Get valid tickets to any event or your money back
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We go out of our way to find replacement tickets if there is an issue with your order
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If your event is canceled and not rescheduled, you will receive a credit worth 120% of the amount you paid for the impacted event or the option of a cash refund
The Self Family’s Disappointment
I personally know people who have had issues with tickets, that have used this and gotten a different pair of tickets to the same show from StubHub. Unfortunately for a South Carolina family who purchased Taylor Swift tickets for one of the Atlanta shows last weekend, it didn’t work well. According to CN2 News the Self Family from Chester purchased tickets on StubHub for $1,700. It seems crazy expensive but for 4 tickets and this tour, it’s actually some of the cheapest I’ve seen resale. They were told they’d receive their tickets within 48 hours of the show Sherry Self told CN2 News. (This right there is a red flag unless that is coming directly from the tour which is another tactic artists and ticketing companies have used to prevent scalpers). And when that 48 hours rolled around, the tickets were still nowhere to be found. StubHub told Self they were unable to find the tickets, and refunded their money. Unfortunately, that still left them without tickets and with hotel and travel expenses.
The Ball Is In Ticketmaster’s Court
My heart goes out to this family, and this is just further confirmation of my feelings about scalpers. In the wake of terrible publicity that reached its breaking point at the Taylor Swift tickets on sale (or lack thereof), Ticketmaster has the option to do the right thing and attempt to control the scalping epidemic. Tickets for the Eras Tour are currently listed on resale sites with almost zero tickets under $1,000. Some of these are restricted view tickets that cost $95 a ticket before fees. Yet Ticketmaster is still sending out a few “verified fan” codes right before shows, and those tickets instantly show up on resale sites.
You Can Help
You may not care, maybe you don’t like Taylor Swift, maybe it just seems like numbers and you think crazy fans will buy anyway. But I encourage you to read CN2New’s full story about the Self family. Ticket scalping is a huge issue (yes there are many others as well), that needs to be addressed. The North Carolina Legislature is currently working on a bill to curb the crazy fees when you purchase tickets. Lawsuits stemming from Taylor Swift tickets have been filed, and Ticketmaster is being investigated. But this happened because people spoke up. I urge you to continue to speak up if you want this to change. Next time it could the tour you want to see. Or it could be you being scammed.
And Ticketmaster, if you want the perspective of someone who has seen both the industry and fan side of this. My inbox is open. Ok, the soapbox is closed for now. I hope that the self family will have an opportunity to get Taylor Swift tickets for another show, that are real this time. And if you are someone who purchases tickets, merchandise, or anything else to scalp I say this as kindly as possible – FU.