When Samantha Osaduke saw Taylor Swift in Toronto during her Reputation tour about six years ago, she bought her ticket a week before the show for around $60.
But the longtime fan of the popstar says scoring tickets for Swift’s Toronto shows during her record-breaking Eras Tour was a completely different story.
“This time it’s like, completely exploded. It’s been crazy,” she said.
“It’s been like insanely difficult. No one I know has concert tickets either.”
Osaduke is among the Swifties who say they’re doing everything from scoping out Ticketmaster’s last-minute ticket drops to entering every contest imaginable that’s offering tickets as a prize, hoping to get a last-minute ticket to one of Swift’s six sold-out Toronto shows at the Rogers Centre.
But one fan says that desperation led her to being scammed out of over $800.
Hunt for ticket leads to getting scammed
Swift’s world tour has caused a surge of interest in tickets in cities across North America and Europe. When they went on sale for her Toronto dates last August, demand far outpaced supply, with many fans who had signed up for a code that would have allowed them to buy tickets ending up on a waitlist.
Resale nosebleed tickets for Swift’s opening Toronto show were selling for upwards of $2,000 on Wednesday.
Maggie Chan says she thinks the feverish demand for tickets, and her desperation to land one, led her to getting scammed out of $850 in October by someone purporting to have tickets.
She says she joined a Facebook group that positioned itself as a group of fans helping each other get tickets.
“I kind of thought that there is no way that other Swifties would steer me wrong.”
She connected with another group member who said they could sell her a ticket to one of Swift’s shows at Rogers Centre for $850.
Though there were some red flags, like her initial payment being denied by PayPal, Chan says thought she was just experiencing technical issues.
But then, after Chan’s payment went through, she says the scammer told to her send an additional $100 to pay a fee for organizing the ticket sale.
WATCH | How to spot a Taylor Swift ticket scam:
After she pushed back, Chan says the scammer did eventually send her an email with what was supposed to be her ticket. When she opened it, it was clearly not an official Ticketmaster transfer, she says.
“I’m generally somebody who is pretty shrewd and is able to kind of like figure things out,” she said.
“But what I noticed during the scam is what people are really taking advantage of are your most vulnerable moments, and the times when your sort of like higher cognitive thinking or critical thinking skills are being pushed aside by your emotion, your desperation.”
Despite this experience, Chan has still been trying to find a way to see one her favourite artists live, including travelling an hour to a local shop holding a contest for the coveted tickets.
‘Scouring everywhere’
Carolyn Craig says she has been trying to get tickets to one of Swift’s tour dates, including in Toronto, since they were announced two years ago.
“I went on every wait list. I’ve been like scouring everywhere and trying to enter some contests, but it’s never prevailed to anything,” she said.
She hoped that she’d be successful when Ticketmaster opened up a limited amount of tickets for the Toronto shows to fans a few days ago.
“I had five devices going just refreshing, refreshing, refreshing trying to see if I can get even just one ticket for any of the nights.”
Hundreds of fans lined up to buy tour merchandise outside Rogers Centre on Nov. 12, two days before the first of Swift’s six-show-run in Toronto. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Craig says she’s seen Swift in concert before, about 10 years ago. But beyond seeing the star perform again, she says she wants to be part of the excitement the Eras tour has generated.
“Just being among all her fans and just seeing how much love everyone has for her and seeing her perform live, I would be over the moon so excited,” she said.
“She has such a fandom already, but there’s just something about this concert that has like drawn in so many eyes that I think everybody just wants to be there because it’s the Eras tour.”