Buying live performance tickets has lengthy been a high-stakes affair, with well-liked occasions typically promoting out inside minutes.
More and more, nonetheless, followers are competing towards automated ticket-buying applications, generally known as bots, that may snap up seats in seconds earlier than reselling them at greater costs.
This has distorted entry not solely to live performance tickets however additionally to on a regular basis providers reminiscent of practice ticket reservations.
Buying a ticket has all the time been “very luck-based,” stated Bryce Sng, a 23-year-old live performance fanatic. The added competitors of bots “feels very unfair,” he added. Half the enjoyment when combating for tickets is the stress, Sng stated, utilizing a bot appears like “it takes away from that have.”
It is a sentiment shared by almost 65% of respondents in a December 2025 survey by the Customers’ Affiliation of Singapore, who stated ticket scalping prevented real followers from attending occasions. The survey’s focus group contributors additionally cited bots that snapped up tickets inside seconds earlier than reselling them at greater costs.
Governments, together with South Korea and China, have responded by tightening guidelines towards automated ticket-buying.
South Korea expanded its anti-scalping legal guidelines on Jan. 29 to focus on conduct that disrupts honest ticket buying for resale, whereas Chinese language regulators have repeatedly warned third-party platforms towards utilizing automated ticket-grabbing software program.
On Feb. 12, Beijing market regulators met with 12 corporations, together with JD.com, Didi and Tencent, over practice ticket gross sales that had drawn “robust public criticism.” In an April 10 announcement, regulators stated seven third-party platforms, together with Ctrip, Alibaba‘s Fliggy and Meituan, had been summoned for regulatory talks.
Within the first three months of 2026, China’s railway system dealt with over 1.13 billion journeys, based on the Nationwide Railway Administration.
Passengers are passing by way of the gate at Fuyang West Railway Station in Fuyang, China, on April 29, 2024.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Photos
Legal guidelines aren’t sufficient
Ticket scalping is an inevitable “perform of provide and demand,” stated Marc Hershberg, director of enterprise and authorized affairs at Music Theatre Worldwide.
Whereas banning bots might assist to some extent, Sng stated that insurance policies alone is probably not efficient.
“Understanding people, they are going to all the time discover a totally different method [around the rules],” he added.
For corporations defending towards bots, there is extra to think about than simply “a single sign,” stated David Irecki, chief expertise officer at knowledge software program firm Boomi.
Detecting bots requires analyzing patterns in consumer knowledge, together with transaction and cost indicators, buy velocity, shopping for patterns and bank card exercise, somewhat than counting on only a single indicator.
To fight bots, Ticketmaster, the first ticketing platform for a lot of live shows, blocks automated software program, identifies and shuts down faux accounts and cancels orders that violate its insurance policies.
“Brute power bot assaults… solely signify one a part of the battle we’re combating towards scalpers,” the corporate instructed CNBC in an e mail.
“These are extremely refined networks that attempt to imitate human fan conduct to mix in.”
Past bots
But bots are just one a part of a a lot bigger drawback. Hershberg stated the restricted variety of tickets accessible to most of the people typically compounds the issue.
In late 2022, Dwell Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster confronted widespread backlash after mishandling ticket gross sales for Taylor Swift’s 2022 ‘Eras’ tour.
The Dwell Nation web site organized on a laptop computer in New York, US, on Wednesday, April 17, 2024.
Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
A number of lawsuits have been filed towards the corporate, alleging monopolistic practices and harming client pursuits.
Dwell Nation reached a $9.9 million settlement with the District of Columbia in April over allegations it marketed deceptively low costs earlier than including necessary charges and used deceptive ways that created synthetic urgency. Dwell Nation denied wrongdoing as a part of the settlement.
“For a minimum of a decade, Dwell Nation and Ticketmaster boosted earnings by charging predatory, hidden charges — benefiting from DC residents shopping for tickets for his or her favourite artist or workforce and pricing others out totally,” stated District of Columbia Lawyer Common Brian L. Schwalb.
Face-value tickets for Swift’s “Eras” tour ranged from $49 to $450, whereas VIP packages began at $199 and reached $899. On the secondary market, some tickets had been listed between $800 and $20,000 every.
The identical challenge extends throughout the leisure trade, Hershberg stated.
“Reveals like Hamilton… are having tickets bought on the resale marketplace for, for instance, $2,000, however the prime ticket value is round $800 on Broadway. That exhibits that they are not setting it at an quantity that’s clearing the market.”
Nevertheless, demand far outstrips provide, and individuals are clearly keen to pay greater costs. However producers who nonetheless wish to make exhibits accessible are unwilling to cost what they contemplate unreasonable costs.
Compounding the issue, some customers don’t notice they’re shopping for tickets from resellers on-line. Hershberg pointed to Broadway.com, a resale ticketing platform whose title typically leads many consumers to mistake it for an official distributor of Broadway tickets. CNBC reached out to Broadway.com however didn’t obtain a response from the corporate by the point of publication.
The issue goes past a singular repair, Boomi’s Irecki stated.
“It is not nearly one device since you want regulation or enterprise coverage, nevertheless it must be supported once more, by well-connected techniques.”
Scalpers are the first beneficiaries of these markups, Hershberg added, somewhat than “the precise people who find themselves placing up with the chance and the artists and different folks engaged on the present.”
