Tegan and Sara call out concert ticket resale sites
Canadian indie pop duo Tegan and Sara are right there with music lovers about the current state of seeing live concerts.
Earlier this week, the “Closer” and “I Was a Fool” singers took to X (formerly known as Twitter) with a post questioning why people have the ability to re-sell their concert tickets online.
The Calgary-formed band is currently in the middle of their 2023 Crybaby Tour, where they played shows in cities such as Toronto, Ottawa, Orillia, Ont. and Cavendish, P.E.I. earlier this summer.
But the difficulty in navigating the concert ticket system in recent years has left the artists baffled.
“Am I dumb? Why are there ticket resale sites for concerts? I can’t resell a plane ticket. I can fly, cancel or change it after I buy. I can’t re-rent my rental car. Or re-rent a hotel room. Like wtf. Go ahead and explain it to me in the comments,” Tegan and Sara shared on Wednesday, in a post that’s now been viewed more than 210,000 times. “What am I missing?”
Fans resonated with the Canadian music stars and their take, with many expressing their own thoughts on how live music got to where it is today.
Sites like Ticketmaster allow people who purchased tickets to re-sell them if the event organizer has enabled that option. If so, ticket re-sellers can list their tickets for the price they choose, whether that’s below the price they paid or higher.
Other sites such as StubHub and Vivid Seats allow ticket holders to list tickets they’ve already bought, including tickets purchased from other sites.
For many events, that creates the issue of scalpers who buy event tickets for a