Theatre alerts audiences over increase in ticket scams

Norwich Theatre has issued a warning to audiences to avoid purchasing resold tickets on social media.

The organisation, which comprises the Theatre Royal and Playhouse, said that it has noticed an increase in ticket reselling scams, both on its own profiles and on social media in general.

“These are usually targeted at sold-out or popular events and can look very convincing," said the theatre, "We have systems in place to remove comments of this nature on our page, but unfortunately, we can’t prevent them elsewhere.”

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Jonathan Brown, Chief Executive of the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers, said that while issues with ticket scams are unusual at regional theatres, he does know of other venues experiencing problems, particularly around one-night events, such as comedy gigs, with well-known performers.

“As soon as you've got any event where lots of people want to buy tickets, it's easy prey for scammers to try and extort money, and that's where you see the fraud committed," said Brown.

The national reporting agency Action Fraud reported that £6.7m was lost in ticketing scams in 2023 – a similar amount to 2022. Brown said that because the figure also includes music, sports and airline tickets and is affected by seasonal trends, it can be challenging to draw conclusions for the theatre sector.

“The thing that seems to be on the increase is people being approached on social media with an offer of tickets. Some might be chancers just trying their luck, or they can be very organised about it and target people who express an interest in a particular artist.

“You see things like social media profiles being stolen [by scammers who] start approaching people on the basis that they are a friend of a friend, then they edge in, ask for bank transfers, and take the money.”

“The biggest problem for theatres is having to deal with those customers when they turn up at the venue. If they haven't got valid tickets, it's horrible because it's really upsetting. People are excited about going to the gig, but sadly, those tickets don't then get them into the seats.

“Unfortunately a lot of people just almost write it off sometimes and say, oh, well, my mistake, I shouldn't have done that. And they don't report it. And that's why there is usually an insufficient volume of reports to trigger any action.”

Pay the price

An analysis from Lloyds Bank earlier this year that looked at broad trends in concert ticket scams found that the number of reported cases relating to concert tickets was up by 158% last summer compared with the same period a year earlier. 

The bank said there had been a surge in fraud cases as a result of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, with UK fans estimated to have lost over £1m since tickets went on sale. Of the reported concert ticket scams, more than 90% were found to have started with fake adverts or posts on Facebook and Facebook Marketplace. 

This week, the bank also estimated that around 6,000 UK football fans fell victim to fraud last season, up by around a third compared with the previous season. 

Banking industry group UK Finance said that criminals take advantage of people hunting for offers for events where the tickets sell out quickly, which also often results in inflated prices on official resale sites.

In May, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to clean up the UK’s secondary ticketing market by introducing new legislation to cap resale prices of tickets, limit the number of tickets people can resell, and make platforms like Viagogo accountable for the provenance of tickets they list, which could also help reduce the attraction of social media scams.