If you’re anything like me, your dreams of buying tickets of buying tickets to the Eras Tour in Australia have turned instead to how to buy a Taylor Swift resale ticket (Australian version) without getting scammed. We’re going to be honest with you: these tickets are hard to come buy. And there’s already scams preying on devastated Taylor Swift fans. But there is a chance to buy resale Taylor Swift tickets — you just have to be careful.
Ahead, we’ll show you how to get tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Australia if you missed out on the pre and general sales (that don’t require you to fork out a house deposit’s worth of tickets to some dickhead scalper). An alternative choice? Try and win a Taylor Swift ticket from one of the competitions we’ve nicely rounded up for you.
Ticketek Is The Only Safe Way To Buy Resell Taylor Swift Tickets
The Ticketek Fan To Fan Marketplace launched on Friday 24th November at 10am AEST and it’s here that fans can buy — or sell — any of their tickets.
As an official reseller, you’re guaranteed that every ticket you buy will be legit. Tickets also won’t be able to be priced more than 10 per cent above their original cost, so eat a bag of dicks, scalpers!!!
Ticketek is the only authorised reseller of Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets in Australia. Whether you’re looking for either Sydney or Melbourne resale tickets, please don’t fall for a scammy site in desperation.
Ticketet have also said that they will be taking extreme measures to reduce ticket scalping, like withholding the release of barcodes until closer to the event. Hot.
So if you don’t want to worry about potentially buying a dodgy ticket, Ticketek’s Fan To Fan Marketplace is your best bet.
Unfortunately, we have no idea how many tickets will be available on the resell site. Taylor Swift resell tickets are some of the hottest property in Australia, and anecdotally, we’ve heard it’s been frustrating to find anything.
Other Taylor Swift Resale Ticket Sites: Tixel, Viagogo, The Ticket Merchant
Ticketek recommends you don’t buy tickets from any unauthorised outlets, including Viagogo, The Ticket Merchant, Tixel, Trade Me, eBay and Gumtree.
They’ve also stated that using other resale sites “may result in all your orders and tickets cancelled without notice to you and your ticket price refunded.”
But what if it’s an absolute clusterfuck over on Ticketek’s ticket resale site?
If it’s slim pickings and you’re willing to risk it for Taylor Swift’s metaphorical biscuit, here’s the deal on third-party ticket resale sites, including Tixel, Viagogo and The Ticket Merchant.
Is Tixel legit?: Taylor Swift Eras Tour Tickets
Just like Ticketek, tickets on Tixel are capped at a markup price of 10 per cent of the face value. They say they have anti-fraud technology which automatically detects the face value of the ticket.
“This not only ensures we are compliant with all relevant legislation but also makes our platform unappealing to scalpers who are unable to make any meaningful profit on their tickets,” a Tixel spokesperson told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
“If you want to do something shady, you’re not doing it on Tixel.”
In order to ensure that all tickets are legit, Tixel says that they go through a complex validation process, including checks to see if tickets have been modified or tampered with, as well as all tickets undergoing a “fraud scoring system”. Basically, this means they use a bunch of fancy techy-tech things (computers, probs) to check that your ticket is real.
The final step to their process is that they hold onto a seller’s money until after the event takes place — that way, if you get to the stadium’s gates and your ticket isn’t scanning and you can’t actually see Tay do her thang, you won’t pay a cent.
Personally, I’ve actually used Tixel a bunch, including most recently to Sydney’s The 1975 show (I know, I know) and it’s always been a pretty posi experience.
You can jump on the Tixel waitlist (which already has thousands of people on it) and be notified if a ticket becomes available. You can also set up ‘auto-buy’, which will automatically buy you a ticket if it fits your cost and category and seat parameters.
“We are safe. We are fair,” the spokesperson said.
Tixel have shared some hot tips with PEDESTRIAN.TV which should help increase your chances of nabbing Taylor Swift tickets on Tixel.
Tips for Taylor Swift Resale Tickets in Australia
- Join the Tixel waitlists (for all SEVEN shows) so you’re notified as soon as another fan lists a ticket for sale. They have set up ‘auto-buy’ so you can opt-in to automatically purchase a ticket immediately after it lists — this will bump you ahead of others on the waitlist.
- Be patient. People WILL need to sell tickets, plans change, a group buying effort ended up with extra tickets, etc. The biggest volume of resale tickets trade in the 72 hours prior to an event.
- Please, please, please avoid the scalpers and criminals. Don’t support exorbitant markups and if a ticket looks too good to be true, it’s because it probably is.
Is Viagogo safe?: Taylor Swift Eras Tour Tickets
Short answer: not really.
Viagogo is another ticket resale platform that’s been soaked in controversy over the years (TL;DR: don’t brand yourself as an ‘official’ resale site if you’re… uh, not official). It’s already been smashed with scalpers taking to the site to list Taylor Swift tickets for five times their original price, despite anti-scalping laws in NSW and Victoria.
The Viagogo guarantee says that buyers are guaranteed to receive their tickets in time for an event, but if a problem arises, they say they’ll step in with replacement tickets or a refund.
However, many people on Reddit have said, and I quote, “Viagogo is the scammiest piece of shit around”.
Well damn, that’s one way to put it.
Tips for Reselling Taylor Swift Tickets on Viagogo
Short answer: don’t. It’s not worth it when the potential to get scammed is this high.
Is The Ticket Merchant a real website and should you buy Eras Tour tickets on it?
Yes, it’s a real website. But is it the best place to buy Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets on? Probably not — that’d be Ticketek’s official resale site.
The Ticket Merchant is an Australian-owned and operated ticket marketplace. They say that they only sell tickets “provided to us by long-term, trusted Australian resellers who we personally know”. They say that this helps them guarantee the authenticity of each ticket sold.
They also provide a 100 per cent guarantee of a refund in the event that you don’t receive your tickets.
Prices are determined by sellers, so it’s likely that they’ll be far above face value, despite the NSW and Victorian pricing regulations.
How much can ticket scalpers actually charge?
We first have to preface this with the reality that many people take the opportunity to resell tickets to showcase the very worst of humanity — hiking up ticket prices, fraudulent tickets, and just general douchebaggery isn’t uncommon, especially when we’re looking at resellers.
Just take for instance some cooked activity on ticket resale sites with scalpers already putting up a bunch of tickets for some absolutely cooked prices, including one ticket on Viagogo for $5,890. Yikes.
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has been declared a “major event” which means that ticket scalping is illegal for all Taylor Swift shows.
Both NSW and Victoria have anti-scalping laws that prevent people from being able to resell tickets at fucked prices. In NSW, this means you can’t sell tickets for more than 10 per cent above the original price. Victoria also has a 10 per cent cap, but this is only for designated “major events”, of which the Eras Tour most definitely is.
Good luck out there, Swifties. You’re gonna need it.
Image source: Getty Image / Buda Mendes/TAS23
