Scalpers List Ed Sheeran Tickets For Insane Prices Moments After Pre-sale Begins

Large quantities of tickets to Ed Sheeran’s upcoming Australian tour have already begun to appear on resale site Viagogo, some only 10 minutes after pre-sale began.

As thousands of fans find themselves stuck in online queues on Ticketmaster and Ticketek trying to purchase passes, scalpers are listing tickets online for a mark-up.

update: ed sheeran adds new shows to 2018 aussie tour

Pre-sale for Sheeran’s March 10 gig at Etihad Stadium went live at 2pm AEST today, and at 2:10pm AEST were listed on Viagogo at huge mark-ups, with B Reserve tickets (originally priced between $70.16 - $161.90 on Ticketmaster) appearing for more than $1,300.

B Reserve tickets for Sheeran’s show at Suncorp Stadium on March 20 were listed for more than $1,500 shortly after going on sale, with fans unable to access Ticketek due to high numbers of traffic.

Speaking with The Music earlier this year about the resale industry, Ed Sheeran’s Australian promoter and Frontier boss Michael Gudinski said the scalping issue is “incredibly confusing and frustrating for a lot of fans”.

“A considerable number of people aren’t aware that they’re buying from a secondary market site and there have been countless times these people have purchased tickets that are not genuine or vastly inflated when they could have still purchase authorised tickets at the original artist set price,” Gudinski said.

“I’d like to see some investment and commitment from the major ticketing companies into pursuing new technologies that can either slow down or eradicate scalpers but I also think the issue needs a deeper level of government involvement.”

With Melbourne pre-sale already exhausted, Frontier Touring have announced a second show at Etihad Stadium will happen on March 11, with pre-sale beginning today at 3:30pm AEST. Here's a handy pre-sale guide.

Earlier this month, Live Performance Australia put their support behind Senator Nick Xenophon’s legislation to ban ticket ‘bots’, amid a global investigation into the resale market led by Choice.

The Music has reached out to Viagogo for comment.