With the tickets for Coldplay's two unique nights in Greece already sold out, our country does not escape the phenomenon of ticket resale at exorbitant prices.
As much as Taylor Swift tried to keep tickets for her world tour out of the hands of resellers, an entire industry was built in her name selling outrageous tickets. A few months ago, looking at the outrageously large sums that her fanatical followers were asked to pay to see her in person, we wondered how that was possible.
In the end, Greece did not manage to become the exception to the rule.
Coldplay decided this year, for the first time, to include Greece in its tour map, naturally causing great joy and excitement to its fanatical audience here. Several days later, after tickets went on sale for their two shows on June 8th and 9th, 2024, less than 2% of the total seats were available, and the prices to secure a seat there were extreme.
Essentially, we are referring to only 1,392 tickets available from the 69,618 seats the Olympic Stadium. However, tickets from the official retailer that works with Coldplay's production team, Ticketmaster, have sold out for both dates, as their website informs us.
These 1,392 remaining tickets are now only available through the site of the resale company, Viagogo, in which the costs of the passes have already started to reach six times the normal prices.
The €4,000 golden ticket
Don't Panic was sung in 2000 by Coldplay on their album Parachutes, a line that ultimately seems to be falling on deaf ears. If you tried to get in a virtual queue to get pre-sale tickets for Coldplay and found yourself behind over 700,000 people waiting - so did a lot of other people.
The online portals that the band's fans had to patiently go through to see them up close at the Olympic Stadium in Athens on June 8, 2024, opened in July. Then, an unprecedented frenzy ensued. Of course, the tickets were sold out within a few hours, so the organisers added a second performance date, on June 9.
Tickets sold out there, too, with pre-sale prices managed exclusively by their production team, ranging from €52.80 to €995! Everything, even the most expensive tickets, sold out in record time.
And where many saw their dream of seeing the band up close, disillusioned, suddenly various ticket resale sites started popping up everywhere.
The difference here, of course, is this: these sites were selling the tickets for exorbitant amounts. Today, on the leading resale site Viagogo, these passes are resold at prices ranging from 378 euros to 4,744 euros.
Those of €4,744, particularly, are simple tickets with very good visibility. At the same time, the website informs the potential customer that only 4 of them are left, but also that the prices may increase.
More specifically, a simple general admission ticket that guarantees us a place in the arena, i.e., standing in front of the stadium tent, currently costs 414 euros to 499 euros, without VIP privileges.
Essentially, regardless of position and "privileges", prices have skyrocketed. Whether in the upper stage or diametrically opposite the stage, tickets can range from 390 euros to 3,000-4,000 euros.
The same applies to seated and non-seated passes, which can vary in the same or similar costs of around 500 euros.
The same happened in Singapore, where within minutes, over 200,000 tickets for Cold Play's opening shows - in January 2024 - were sold during the pre-sale period, breaking Singapore's record for the most tickets sold in just one day.
Despite technical problems on the ticketing website during the presale, general sales resumed on Tuesday, with ticket prices ranging from $68 to $298. In addition, two new dates have been added – making the concerts in the same city a total of six, so much for an "Asian" tour.
Ticket prices have skyrocketed there, too.
It's no secret that attending a live event can be expensive, but for some die-hard fans, the cost is worth it to see their favourite artists in person. Just ask the Taylor Swift fans who were willing to pay thousands of dollars for a ticket to the singer's highly anticipated Eras Tour.
Eager fans rushed to get tickets on Ticketmaster, but demand was so great that the website crashed, leaving thousands of fans disappointed. Then resellers on sites like StubHub rushed to offer the same tickets for as much as $6,000, down from the $500 a pass cost on average.
Similarly, concert-goers trying to buy tickets for Drake's It's All a Blur tour said they were "fighting for their lives" after facing high prices on resale site SeatGeek, with some tickets going for as much as $5,000 when initially advertised that they started at $69 on Ticketmaster.
The phenomenon, however, is getting bigger in Greece and many other countries that are not spared. With artists such as Beyoncé, Harry Styles, Elton John, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran touring in 2023 and 2024, the surge in demand is seeing concert tickets sell out in seconds - only to be resold at exorbitant prices.
Some fans can pay over 2,000% more than the original price for tickets to these sought-after events, with Ticketmaster, Viagogo and StubHub having the highest mark-up rates.
The problem with ticket smuggling
Smuggling is buying tickets to a concert, show or sporting event to resell them at a higher price. While in some places, it is legal to resell tickets above a certain price if you have a business license for this type of trade, in other countries, it is not.
Ticket smuggling has long been a controversial issue in live events, as it is unfair to fans who cannot purchase tickets at face value and rewards those who need to do nothing more than buy multiple tickets before anyone else.
Online ticket purchases have contributed to the growth of the phenomenon, and as a result, the demand for a concert goes up, and the overall prices of the events swell. This creates a vicious cycle, as increased ticket prices attract more smugglers to the market, perpetuating the problem.
Unfortunately, fans are often forced to pay exorbitant prices for tickets that should be available at a much lower cost.
So after two years of pandemic cancellations, interruptions and delays, live music events are returning with great success, but unfortunately, with extreme price lists and no assurance and protection of their fans against well-meaning resellers.
And the question remains: who will finally buy these four remaining Coldplay tickets worth €4,744? Better yet, how much more can their price go up? It remains to be seen.
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