AusLeisure

Ticketing agencies Ticketek and Ticketmaster have responded to the huge demand for tickets to Adele‘s 2017 Australian tour, which went on sale yesterday.

The websites of both ticketing companies faced a huge amount of traffic yesterday, as fans scrambled to snap up tickets to Adele’s first ever Australian tour, and while most left the sites with tickets, there were a range of complaints as both sites at times struggled to cope with the huge demand.

In a statement to the Music Feeds website, Ticketmaster said there were 90,000 fans searching for tickets to the Melbourne show at Etihad Stadium at one time and a further 105,000 fans searching for tickets at The Gabba in Brisbane.

The statement explained “in spite of the unprecedented demand for this amazing artist, Ticketmaster successfully announced two extra Adele shows in Melbourne and Brisbane during the morning.

“Our sophisticated technology helped to ensure that the tickets we sold ended up in the hands of real fans.”

Ticketek which dealt with sales for Adele’s Sydney and Adelaide shows, and faced similar demand.

Also responding to Music Feeds, a Ticketek spokesperson advised “the Adele general public onsale yesterday was probably the biggest day ever for the Australian music industry in terms of sales and online traffic.

“The volumes have created all sorts of records across all sales and communications channels. “Ticketek transacted well over 100,000 tickets for the Sydney and Adelaide shows for Adele in just a few hours. We thank the fans for their patience and persistence amid the unprecedented demand and huge traffic on our transactional channels.”

Despite Ticketek and Ticketmaster’s best efforts, tickets to Adele’s 2017 Australian tour are already being sold on by ticket resellers at up to 18 times the original price.

With tickets originally retailing for less than $300, tickets to the Perth Domain Stadium show are being advertised on reselling site Viagogo for more than $5,000 while other reselling sites were offering tickets for $2,590 for the Adelaide and Melbourne shows, $1,946 for Brisbane and $1,349 for Sydney.

Similar reselling activity had occurred at the weekend when tickets for comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s 2017 Australian tour sold out in minutes, only to appear on resale sites for inflated prices.

Responding to The Guardian on inquiries about resellers, Ticketek advised “we see countless examples of people who buy from resale and never receive tickets or find that they are the third or fourth buyer of the same ticket.

“Fans should only purchase tickets from the official ticketing agent.” 

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