The resale prices of tickets to the Foo Fighters show in Montreal fluctuate so much that it looks like the stock market. In less than 24 hours, the cost of the cheapest ticket more than doubled, from $171 to $363.
On Wednesday, online resale platform SeatGeek was listing tickets at $171, just $10 more than the original price when it went on official sale.
Thursday morning, the situation was quite different. The price of a ticket on SeatGeek ranged between $363 and $1231.
The Foo Fighters concert, which will take place Monday at the Verdun Auditorium, was sold out a few minutes after tickets went on sale on June 29.
As of midweek, at least one-fifth of the Foo Fighters concert tickets were still on resale.
At the same time, on Vividseats, 750 tickets were on resale. This number was 420 on Event Tickets Center. In total, the various online resale platforms displayed 2,600 tickets. Note that the same ticket can be offered simultaneously on more than one site of its kind.
On StubHub, 650 tickets were on resale Wednesday afternoon. “That number can constantly go up and down until the show is held,” says Jessica Erskine Finn, director of corporate communications.
The latter was not mistaken. On Thursday, the number of resale tickets on StubHub stood at 213. On SeatGeek, in less than 24 hours, the quantity of tickets went from 800 to 264, before rising to 346.
Resellers sometimes ask for astronomical sums. On Wednesday, a pair of tickets was listed for US$158,000 (C$210,000) on Vividseats.
The low capacity of the Verdun Auditorium explains the high price of Foo Fighters tickets, argues Jessica Erskine Finn. “The band could easily fill a room three, four, or five times the size. »
The Foo Fighters rank 12th on the charts with the most expensive resale tickets of 2023, Ms. Finn points out.
In Quebec, the resale of tickets online is still not a regulated practice. According to the Consumer Protection Office, a buyer can “resell tickets at the price that suits him”.
According to Yany Grégoire, full professor in the marketing department at HEC Montréal, consumers can take advantage of the absence of rules, provided they know the rules of the game.
“For example, someone who travels a lot will know that a plane ticket back on the weekend is going to be more expensive than a ticket during the week,” he says.
Precise conditions also make it possible to predict when a show ticket should be purchased or resold. The problem is that those who know them well can enjoy them endlessly.
These scalpers can even buy tickets already on resale at a favorable price to resell them again, more expensive, explains Mr. Grégoire. This process is detrimental to fans, who end up shopping for more expensive tickets.
“One of the possible solutions would be to associate the ticket with a person, and that only this person can resell it”, comments Danilo Dantas, professor at HEC Montreal.
Obviously, the situation shocks fans of Foo Fighters. Peter is one of them. With his wife, the resident of Blainville tried, in vain, to buy two tickets to attend the concert of the group in Verdun. Even though he had logged on to Ticketmaster about twenty minutes before the official sale, he found himself in a queue of 2,000 people.
Hundreds of people have been through a similar situation, according to comments from a Facebook post by CHOM-FM.
A few hours after failing to reserve his seats, Peter found that hundreds of resale tickets could be found on the internet. “Everyone wants to make a buck off the backs of music fans,” he laments.
The Foo Fighters have already put on a show at the Verdun Auditorium in the early 2000s. Their leader, Dave Grohl, also performed there in 1993 with Nirvana, a group of which he was the drummer.
The rock formation will be at the Festival d’été de Québec on Saturday evening.
