Presale tickets for Taylor Swift’s highly anticipated Australian performances went on sale on Monday, but scalpers didn’t take long to take advantage of the opportunity. Just hours after the tickets became available, they were listed on Viagogo’s reselling website for prices exceeding $2,000 each.
The American singer-songwriter is set to perform in Sydney and Melbourne in February 2024 as part of her Eras Tour. General admission tickets for the shows are priced between $79.90 and $379.90, while VIP packages range from $349.90 to $1,249.90.
Although tickets for the general public are scheduled for sale later this week, presale VIP packages were made available through the American Express presale on Monday morning. However, shortly after the sale began, tickets appeared on the Viagogo website at an astonishing price of $2,329 per ticket.
The presale was officially slated to start at 10 am, but reports indicated that the American Express website experienced outages as early as 9:30 am. By Monday afternoon, presale tickets for the Sydney and Melbourne shows had already sold out.
The next opportunity to purchase tickets will be through the Frontier presale, scheduled for Wednesday, June 28, at 10 am for Sydney and 12 pm for Melbourne.
The Eras Tour will mark Taylor Swift’s return to Australia since her successful Reputation Stadium Tour in 2018, further fueling the excitement among her fans.
Viagogo, the reselling website involved in this ticket scalping incident, has faced criticism in the past for its practices. In 2019, the Australian Federal Court found Viagogo guilty of breaching Australian consumer law by misleading consumers. Additionally, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) took legal action against Viagogo in 2017 for allegedly breaching Australian Consumer Law when reselling recreational event tickets. Furthermore, it was reported in January 2018 that a significant portion of Australian Open tickets sold on Viagogo were invalid.
The inflated prices seen on Viagogo for Taylor Swift tickets highlight the ongoing issue of ticket scalping and the challenges faced by fans trying to secure tickets at fair prices. Concert organizers and regulatory authorities continue to address this problem to ensure a more equitable and transparent ticketing process for all music enthusiasts.
