After the big Metallica 6-minute sellout last August, today was the turn of Taylor Swift. Tickets for the China show went on sale at 12pm. Tickets for the China show were all sold out at 12.01pm.
Forgive our cynicism, but it seems to us unlikely (particularly considering the SHOCKING state of Shanghai’s internet at the moment) that all 10,000 tickets were sold to end consumers. Considering the prices that Metallica tickets were reaching on the secondary market just days after “selling out”, expect to see 20-30,000RMB tickets surfacing in the next few days for the queen of country. We will withhold judgement on whether or not Taylor Swift is popular enough to warrant this kind of behavior (she is about as big as anyone on the planet at the moment). We would only be shedding crocodile tears if the scalpers were burned hard on this one.
We imagine that this has been going on for years with Chinese shows but it is only recently that international acts have started warranting this kind of attention. Scalping is the scourge of ticket buyers everywhere, but it seems that China’s particular brand (which often involves venues and the big ticketing companies, and sometimes even the promoters themselves) will destroy the ticketing market for years to come if it isn’t legislated.
We’re not holding our collective breaths. In the meantime, watch and weep…