I Resell Concert Tickets: I Made $22K on Taylor Swift’s Tour
Written by
Andrew Lisa
Edited by
Levi Leidy
Commitment to Our Readers
GOBankingRates' editorial team is committed to bringing you unbiased reviews and information. We use data-driven methodologies to evaluate financial products and services - our reviews and ratings are not influenced by advertisers. You can read more about our editorial guidelines and our products and services review methodology.
20 Years
Helping You Live Richer
Reviewed
by Experts
Trusted by
Millions of Readers
To call Taylor Swift popular might be the biggest understatement in music history. In October 2022, she became the first artist ever to sweep the entire Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. Just last month in July, she became the first woman in history to hold four Top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 simultaneously.
When you bring that kind of heat, your fans can expect to pay a pretty penny to see you live — and concert ticket resellers can expect major profits if they decide to take advantage of the situation, despite the controversy. Here’s how one of those resellers made thousands off Swift’s Eras Tour.
Reseller Banks $22K Using Computer Bots
It’s illegal to use bots to buy tickets or to resell tickets procured by bots, but enforcement is difficult and the Federal Trade Commission rarely brings cases — and resellers know this.
GOBankingRates spoke with a reseller who — for obvious reasons — chose to conceal her identity and go only by Mary.
“When Taylor Swift announced her Eras Tour, I knew tickets would be in huge demand so I used bots to buy up as many tickets as I could when they first went on sale,” said Mary, who also used bots to purchase large blocks of tickets for Adele, Beyoncé and other major concert tours. “I ended up getting 50 floor seats for various shows, which I bought for around $150 each directly from Ticketmaster.”
She then resold the tickets on StubHub for an average of $600 per ticket, earning her roughly $22,500 in profit.
“The huge demand and Swift’s popularity as an artist enabled me to charge those high resale prices,” said Mary, who thinks of it not as criminal activity, but simply as a side hustle that cuts some corners.
“Reselling tickets can be extremely lucrative if you target the right events,” she said. “I’ve built my entire business around predicting which tours will have the hottest demand and buying up inventory during the presales before most fans can get access. Swift’s tour was a perfect opportunity and I was fortunate to profit so significantly.”
Eras: The Billion-Dollar Tour (and Reseller’s Dream)
Let’s backtrack a bit. First, why are people willing to shell out $600-plus a pop to see Taylor Swift in concert? What makes the Eras Tour so special for fans — and so lucrative for resellers like Mary?
One of the reasons may be that Swift has released four new albums since last touring in 2018. When she announced her Eras Tour, it was with the intent to not only perform songs from the new albums but every album across her 17-year career. With an incredible 44-song, three-hour setlist, Swift launched her six-month Eras Tour in March and the “Midnights” singer will wrap up the U.S. leg of the tour on Aug. 9.
The Wall Street Journal initially estimated it would earn more than $1 billion to become the highest-grossing tour of all time. But when Swift added extra dates, concert data provider Pollstar predicted the haul would be closer to $1.4 billion.
For context, the current record holder is Elton John, whose Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour grossed $853 million — and that spanned five years and included hundreds more shows than Eras.
When including travel, accommodations, clothing and other expenses, CNBC estimates Swift’s fans will have spent a combined $5 billion to see her live during the Eras Tour — that’s more than the GDP of 50 countries.
The Cheap Seats Were $50, but Most Fans Who Sat in Them Paid Much More
When tickets went on sale on Nov. 15, 2022, Swift broke yet another record when her fans bought 2.4 million tickets in a single day, the most seats ever sold by any artist in 24 hours. The overwhelming demand was so intense that it crashed Ticketmaster’s website — but many buyers weren’t her fans.
They were resellers looking to cash in on the Eras Tour gold rush.
Prices were reasonable by modern stadium concert standards, ranging from $50 to $899 for the priciest VIP options. But with so many fans and so few seats, tickets quickly began popping up on the secondary market for hundreds or thousands of dollars over face value. Within a few days, ticket reseller StubHub listed seats with prices as high as $6,300. On Vivid Seats, they went up to $8,253. Reports emerged on Twitter of tickets going for more than $20,000.
Many Fans Lost Their Seats to Bots
The bots that Mary used to achieve her $22,500 payday have been around for a while now. In one of his final acts as president, Barack Obama signed the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act in December 2016, outlawing the use of these scalper bots. They work by enabling resellers to jump the line and exceed ticket purchase limits by simulating multiple users on platforms like Ticketmaster.
Bots can buy more than 1,000 tickets in a single hour by projecting different IP addresses, scraping ticket details, scanning newly released inventory and instantly purchasing any available tickets much faster than a human.
Resellers armed with bots rob true fans of the opportunity to buy tickets at a reasonable price and turn in-demand concerts, Broadway shows and sporting events into status symbols for the rich. While some fans were lucky enough to snag Swift seats, others will have to wait until the next tour and hope they can get to tickets before resellers do.
More From GOBankingRates
