By Amanda Telfer

Police Scotland has revealed that there have been more than 300 ticket scams reported in the first nine months of this year, with a third of these being related to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which took place at Murrayfield Stadium in June.

These types of scams prey on fans’ desperation for tickets, which are often extremely difficult to get. This raises the question, are complex ticket sales to blame for the rise in ticket-related scams?

There are many reasons why buying tickets has grown increasingly difficult, one of them being dynamic pricing.

Dynamic pricing, also known as platinum pricing, is the practice of altering the value of a ticket based on demand. For example, if the face-value price for a seated ticket for a concert in The Hydro was £45, dynamic pricing means that the price could skyrocket to as high as £200. This was seen during the recent ticket sales for Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet Tour.

Juliana Brown, from Wishaw in North Lanarkshire, is a fan who has been affected by dynamic pricing in the past. She said: “Personally I disagree with dynamic pricing. I believe that it creates an unfair environment as it makes concerts more inaccessible to those who cannot afford these higher prices. It does not consider the fans who support these artists and are the reason for dynamic pricing even being considered.”

Lindsay Duncan, from Glasgow, also agreed with this, saying: “I don’t agree with it at all because I don’t think it stops touts because they still get tickets and they still sell them for a ridiculous price, and it just means that other people can’t afford it. It’s also not fair if you get them first and they’re cheaper and then the prices go up. It’s just not a fair way to do it I don’t think.”

Fans paid under £25 for tickets to see Sabrina Carpenter perform in Glasgow last year (Roberto Ricciuti)

Another way that buying tickets has become more difficult is due to verified fan registration ticket sales. These sales require fans to register their interest in tickets via Ticketmaster, and then a few days prior to the ticket sale, unique codes will be sent out randomly to fans. This method was used for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in the UK, however, it has proven to have not worked well for many fans.

Juliana said: “Firstly, there were two main presales – Midnights pre-sale and artist pre-sale. The Midnights pre-sale was for people who had signed up or bought something prior to the tour announcement. The artist pre-sale involved signing up on a waiting list and being selected at random based on the availability of tickets. I found the waiting list presale to be very stressful. When I was first taken off the waitlist, they had actually given me the code for Cardiff when I had specifically signed up for Edinburgh, but this was later changed.

“Then on the day of the release, the tickets were very limited and quite expensive – even though I could have bought tickets I decided to leave these tickets as I was already going to another night. However, when I wanted to try again closer to the time, I found out that the pre-sale code had expired, and I no longer had an opportunity to get them. This was really disappointing as I hadn’t even used the code and the opportunity was now gone.”

Verified fan sales have left many listeners unable to secure their place at gigs (Kevin Mazur/TAS24)

Recently, getting tickets has impacted a lot of people’s enjoyment and excitement for experiencing concerts and live music.

Caitlin Maule, from Stirling, said: "I definitely feel the buying experience has lessened my excitement to go to concerts recently. A lot of the time I end up getting stressed over buying the tickets and spending a lot of money that I don’t get to feel the enjoyment of the event itself."

On the other hand, others still feel the excitement for concerts. Lindsay Duncan, another fan from Glasgow, said: “It’s not soured my excitement because I still love concerts, but it makes me more nervous to buy concert tickets. If it’s something that I really want to go to, I’ll get other people onboard that will all try to get them.”

With all of these issues getting tickets, some people have been trying the secondary market via resellers. While some resale websites such as Twickets have legitimate tickets for sale, there are other websites where a lot of scams have been occurring. Scams have also been seen with resale tickets advertised on social media.

It has become clear that if ticket sales were easier, less expensive, and less stressful, then a lot fewer people would be affected by ticket scams, as they wouldn’t have to turn to the secondary market.

In the meantime, though, until ticket sales become easier, Police Scotland has warned the public to remain “vigilant” when it comes to ticket-related scams online.

How Dynamic Pricing is making ticket scams soar