Chapter 1: 119.03 Million Won! ... Taylor Swift Concert Ticket Prices Skyrocket

Concert Tickets for May Next Year Listed at Hundreds of Millions on Resale Sites
Sold for 65,000 to 600,000 Won Each During Presale
Political Circles: "Serious Market Monopoly Issue... Consumer Protection Needed"

American pop star Taylor Swift. Photo by AFP Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Culture Intern Reporter Young] The concert ticket prices for American pop star Taylor Swift have soared up to 100 million KRW on resale sites. On the 16th (local time), CNN reported that "tickets for Taylor Swift's concert held at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on May 26, 2023, are being sold on the resale site StubHub for $21,600 (approximately 28.68 million KRW) per ticket."

Taylor Swift's 2023 U.S. tour tickets were presold on May 15 through the online ticket sales site Ticketmaster at prices ranging from $49 to $499 (approximately 65,000 to 600,000 KRW) per ticket. However, fans flocked to the concert, which is her first in five years, and on the day of ticket sales, Ticketmaster's servers were overwhelmed, causing the site to go down.

The next day, tickets with premiums dozens of times higher appeared on the resale site StubHub. Floor seats for the March 17 concert in Arizona were listed at $17,000 (approximately 22.71 million KRW), floor seats for the April 28 concert in Georgia ranged from $35,438 (approximately 47 million KRW) to $89,100 (approximately 119.03 million KRW), and tickets for the May 26 concert in New Jersey were listed at $23,000 (approximately 30.72 million KRW).

Tickets priced in the hundreds of millions of KRW appeared depending on the seat, which is more expensive than tickets for the Super Bowl, the final game of the popular American sport, the National Football League (NFL). The average resale price for Super Bowl tickets, which set a record high last February, was $10,427 (approximately 13 million KRW).

As ticket resale prices rise, criticism over market monopolization continues. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated, "Ticketmaster is a monopoly company," and argued, "The government should use existing resources and laws to protect consumers and investigate Ticketmaster's anti-competitive practices in the concert market."

Last Year, BTS LA Concert Resale Tickets Reached 18 Million KRW

This is not the first time ticket resale prices have surged. Last year, resale prices for BTS's U.S. LA concert 'Permission to Dance Stage' soared up to 18 million KRW. The original ticket prices ranged from a minimum of $75 (approximately 90,000 KRW) to $450 (approximately 530,000 KRW). Besides concerts, tickets for the friendly match of the Bentoho team held last June were sold on secondhand trading sites for as much as 350,000 KRW, more than 10 times the original price.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.