TL;DR: Sports Hub needs to get their act together.
By now, you must have heard that tickets to Ed Sheeran’s show on Nov 11 was sold out within 40 minutes and demand was so hot that the show promoter AEG opened a second show on Nov 12.
Hundreds of fans queued up overnight at Singapore Indoor Stadium box office just to get their hands on the tickets when the sale began at 10am on Thursday.
But not all were lucky.
Some diehard fans queued in the virtual waiting room on Singapore Sports Hub’s website for hours, only to learn that the tickets were sold out.
Their disappointment plunged further when they found out that scalpers were reselling the tickets on online marketplaces Viagogo and Carousell at up to 10 times the original price.
Singapore Sports Hub tried to intervene by warning patrons against buying from resellers as no one (except Sports Hub) has been authorised to sell tickets for this show. They also previously voided tickets that were resold online at inflated prices.
Since then, online users have been trying to report scalpers but some are smart enough to get away with it without being caught by Singapore Sports Hub.
Take this seller by the name of “skyfullofcharm” on Carousell for example.
According to her post, she might be catching Ed Sheeran’s show in Tokyo instead but won’t be letting go of her tickets at retail price after queuing for 8 hours and developing a gastric thereafter.
She included these disclaimers in her post and asked interested buyers to PM their offers:
- Rows and seat numbers will not be disclosed
- Reseller/unverified/new accounts won’t be entertained
Check out some of these comments on her post:
More drama:
Seller defends her post fiercely:
If this seller is adamant on not revealing the ticket details, there is no way for Singapore Sports Hub to void her tickets. The eventual buyer will probably also not “expose” her during the meet-up unless he/she is willing to sacrifice his or her chance to see Ed Sheeran live.
While reselling is prohibited under the Sports Hub’s terms and conditions of sale, there is no legislation in Singapore to prevent the resale of tickets.
Therefore, such reselling practices are not considered unlawful and it explains why Carousell won’t do anything about it.
If you had queued for 8 hours but eventually thinking of letting go the tickets, what would you do?
Would you sell them at retail price or at a small margin? Bear in mind that the seller is not intending to sell the tickets at twice or thrice the retail price.
