MELBOURNE — The Melbourne Cricket Grounds is the largest venue Taylor Swift will play on the Eras Tour with almost 100,000 fans attending each night, so why is it the hardest venue to find even one ticket (regular or resale)?
Because of the Major Events Act 2009, which prevents reselling tickets at exorbitant prices. The law, amended in 2022, ensures that tickets are only bought by fans and not by scalpers or bots looking to make preposterous profits.
“In Australia, Melbourne is the sporting events capital,” said Jeannie Paterson, a law professor at the University of Melbourne. “We have a lot of stadiums. We have the sporting district, the Australian Open, and we also run a lot of concerts in those venues.”
The law states that any “major event” proclaimed by the government of Victoria (Melbourne’s state) cannot have tickets resold for more than 10% above face value. Those who disobey the law are looking at fines of thousands of dollars.
“Tickets can only be resold through an authorized ticket seller,” Paterson said, “like Ticketek or Ticketmaster, so it chokes the idea that you buy a whole lot of tickets early and then sell them for exploitative prices.”
Major events have been declared for 2024 on Victoria’s website:
“If you go and buy 10 tickets, you can’t recoup a huge profit,” Paterson said. “It’s a law that keeps the price of tickets where they’ve been advertised so that people go (to events) who want to go.”
In Sydney’s state of New South Wales, the law is the same except a “major event” does not have to be declared by the government. If consumers buy any ticket to a music concert, theater event, sporting match or other event, they cannot resell it for more than 10% and must do it on an approved site.
This is far different from the approach in America, where resale prices for the Eras Tour take advantage of the high demand. On Dec. 7, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced the Fans First Act, aimed at addressing flaws in the current live event ticketing systems.
Swift will play three American cities in the fall. At last check on StubHub.com, one Eras Tour ticket to a Miami show ranged from $2,190-$13,585, one ticket to a New Orleans show ranged from $1,671-$13,924 and one ticket to an Indianapolis show ranged from $2,479-$15,007.
Swifties refer to trying to get tickets and waiting hours in the queue as fighting the “Great War,” a song on her “Midnights” album.
On Tuesday, Ticketek announced a ticket drop for “H Reserve.” The $65 seats came with a warning of partial/restricted views because of their behind-the-stage location.
And on Thursday, without any publicity, Ticketek made a surprise 4 p.m. drop of tickets scattered throughout the stadium. Hundreds lined up at the physical location on Exhibition Street in downtown Melbourne and thousands of fans attempted to nab seats online.
Fans trying to score tickets must enter the Ticketek Marketplace queue before accessing the website. If there is a resale posted, they have milliseconds to click on the seats and secure them before another fan. The catch is the website only allows fans stay in the ticket area for about 10 minutes before booting the user to re-enter the queue and start all over.
Follow Bryan West, the USA TODAY Network’s Taylor Swift reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.
