Taylor Swift fans are at risk of being ripped off by opportunists amid the frenzy over the pop star’s UK leg of her Eras tour.
The Reputation artist has landed in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she will be performing three shows at Murrayfield Stadium before further gigs in cities including Cardiff, Liverpool, and London.
Ahead of her first performance on Friday (7 June), and as eager fans camped outside the stadium in the hopes of securing the best spot on the venue floor, tickets were being sold on secondary ticketing site Viagogo for as much as £4,256 each.
The tickets listed for the eye-watering sum claimed to offer a “clear view” of the show, despite being for the floor zone, which does not guarantee a place near the stage.
Elsewhere on Viagogo, a pair of seated tickets were being flogged for £1,198 each, while a pair in the East5 section were listed at £1, 182 apiece.
A Viagogo spokesperson told The Independent: “Viagogo doesn’t sell tickets or set prices. Sellers set the price of their listings and fans ultimately choose the listing that meets their budget.
“This is a reflection of supply and demand. The tickets you still see listed on the platform at extremely high prices, by default, have not sold and rarely ever will.”
In July last year, Swifties were left fuming after tickets to her record-breaking Eras Tour were sold only to reappear on secondary ticketing websites within minutes.
Sites selling tickets crashed, with nearly 40,000 people joining the online queue for when the presale for the US pop star’s London and Edinburgh shows began.
Early access was granted to fans who had pre-ordered Swift’s 2022 album Midnights.
At the time, tickets for for London’s Wembley Stadium show were on sale for as much as £3,352. The original sale price for a standing ticket in the front row was £172.25.
Some fans blamed Ticketmaster over apparent glitches while they were in the online queue.
“I was first in the queue for Taylor Swift tickets and Ticketmaster kicked me out of the queue for literally no reason,” one fan tweeted in July. “There goes my chance at tickets.”
Scottish National Party MP Gavin Newlands said he had experienced the same issue on Ticketmaster while trying to secure tickets for his daughter.
“Just as I got in, you kicked me out with an error,” he wrote. “Now back in queue at 18,000 odd, with no chance of a ticket. Super.”
Ticketmaster did not reply to The Independent’s request for comment at the time of writing.
In April, Lloyds Bank issued a warning to fans as it said that more than 600 of its UK customers had reported being scammed while trying to buy Swift tickets.
The figures from Lloyds Bank were based on analysis of relevant purchase scams reported by customers at Lloyds Bank, Halifax, and the Bank of Scotland, where Swift and/or the Eras Tour were referenced as part of the claim, between July 2023 and March 2024.
On average, each victim lost around £332, though Lloyds said that in some cases customers were fleeced of more than £1,000.
Lloyds said that there are usually two waves of fraud: the first when tickets go on sale, and the second closer to when the event is taking place.
Liz Ziegler, fraud prevention director at Lloyds Bank, said: “For her legion of dedicated Swifties, the excitement is building ahead of Taylor’s Eras Tour finally touching down in the UK this summer.
“However cruel fraudsters have wasted no time in targeting her most loyal fans as they rush to pick up tickets for her must-see concerts.
“It’s easy to let our emotions get the better of us when we find out our favourite artist is going to be performing live, but it’s important not to let those feelings cloud our judgment when trying to get hold of tickets.”
