Last month at Goyang Sports Complex, the British band Oasis held a concert. Oasis SNS

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At the concert of the British band Oasis held at Goyang Sports Complex last month, a man in his 60s was seen checking physical tickets with two women in their 20s and exchanging cash. After completing the transaction, the man immediately left the area. Around the concert venue, some people who failed to get tickets were seen showing their mobile phones and negotiating prices, suggesting possible scalping activities. Tickets that were originally priced between 100,000 and 400,000 KRW soared to over 1,000,000 KRW online, with all these scenes raising suspicions of illegal ticket trading.

NCT WISH Concert VIP Seat

Regular Price 198,000 KRW
→ 8,000,000 KRW Transaction

Seventeen Fan Meeting

Regular Price 110,000 KRW
→ 6,500,000 KRW Transaction

G-Dragon Concert VIP Seat

Regular Price 220,000 KRW
→6,800,000 KRW Transaction

Lim Youngwoong Concert VIP Seat

Regular Price 187,000 KRW
→3,000,000 KRW

For popular cultural and sports events such as K-pop concerts and professional baseball games, tickets sell out instantly upon release, making the competition for reservations increasingly fierce. For highly anticipated performances, the waiting queue can reach hundreds of thousands as soon as ticketing opens, leading to complaints that "ticketing itself is meaningless."

Posts stating "Multiple VIP seats available" are continuously being uploaded to secondhand platforms. The prices of VIP seats for music performances have soared to 20 to 30 times the original price. Recently, a VIP seat for the NCT WISH concert, originally priced at 198,000 KRW, was traded for as much as 8,000,000 KRW, and a ticket for the Seventeen fan meeting (originally 110,000 KRW) rose to 6,500,000 KRW. This year, a VIP seat for the G-Dragon concert was traded for up to 6,800,000 KRW (31 times the original price of 220,000 KRW), and a VIP seat for the Lim Youngwoong concert soared from 187,000 KRW to 3,000,000 KRW. Playoff tickets for professional baseball (original price 75,000 KRW) went up to 800,000 KRW, and even LG Twins intra-squad game tickets, which are issued for free (with a 1,000 KRW fee), were traded for over 80,000 KRW.

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According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on November 19, suspected online scalping cases in professional sports increased from 6,237 in 2020 to 184,933 in 2024, and 259,334 as of August 2025. This is more than a 41-fold increase in five years. Of the 32,013 scalping reports received by the Korea Professional Sports Association's Scalping Report Center in 2025, 78.7% (25,188 cases) occurred on Ticketbay.

The same trend is evident in the performance sector. The number of scalping reports filed with the Korea Creative Content Agency's Scalping Monitoring Center jumped from 359 in 2020 to 4,224 in 2022, more than a tenfold increase. The numbers remained in the 2,000s, with 2,161 cases in 2023 and 2,224 in 2024. Of the 3,400 scalping reports received between January 2023 and July 2024, 75% were related to music performances. Private transaction spaces such as secondhand trading applications and social networking services are in a regulatory blind spot, as it is difficult to hold platforms legally accountable under current law.

In 2024, Ticketbay had 44,160 scalping sellers and 298,253 transactions. Among them, the top 1% of sellers (441 people) accounted for 122,745 transactions, making up 41.2% of the total. The total transaction amount for these top sellers was 2,986,400,000 KRW, with an average annual profit per person of about 67,000,000 KRW. The total market size is estimated to exceed 100 billion KRW per year.

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Full-time scalpers are becoming increasingly organized. They use macro programs to secure large numbers of popular seats, and if prices do not rise sufficiently, they hold onto the tickets instead of canceling, adjusting the timing of their sales. They also use various loopholes such as 'Aolm' (transferring IDs), 'Daelti' (proxy ticketing), 'Jikring' (direct link), and trading of advance reservation rights to secure seats or circumvent the official reservation process.

As cases of entire blocks disappearing instantly at the start of ticketing increase, the number of seats accessible to general ticket buyers continues to decline. In response, K-pop agencies are expanding advance reservation systems based on fan club membership and paid tiers, but there are limits to curbing scalping. In fact, at some fan meetings and concerts this year, many empty seats were observed on the day of the event despite announcements of "sold out" shows. Among fans, there are claims that "scalpers deliberately do not cancel to maintain high prices."

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The National Tax Service has recently launched a tax investigation into 17 professional scalpers (including three corporations) among the top 1% of sellers on ticket trading platforms, who are strongly suspected of tax evasion. Ahn Deoksu, Director of the Investigation Bureau at the National Tax Service, stated, "These corporate scalpers include public institution employees and private school teachers," estimating that at least 22 billion KRW worth of scalped tickets have been circulated by them over several years.

Lee Jueun (34), who lives in Bulgwang-dong, Seoul, said, "I logged in as soon as ticketing started, but my waiting number was in the 90,000s. In the end, I had no choice but to buy a scalped ticket for 350,000 KRW." Office worker Shin Jaeyong (42) shared, "I tried to get Lim Youngwoong concert tickets for my parents but failed, so I looked into secondhand trading and ended up being scammed. Now, whenever I see a suspicious post, I report it automatically, but nothing seems to improve."

As scalping damages rapidly increase, there is criticism that government response personnel are severely lacking. The "Online Scalping Report Center" operated by the Korea Creative Content Agency has only one staff member dedicated to performances, making it impossible to handle the tens of thousands of reports pouring in annually from the performance and sports sectors.

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Concert organizers and ticketing platforms are strengthening technical measures, but their effectiveness remains limited. Major ticketing sites such as Yes24 and Interpark are enhancing anti-bot verification, but it is difficult to keep pace with the speed of macro development. Strengthening real-name verification has sparked controversy over excessive personal information requirements, such as requiring ID card photos, and has sometimes resulted in innocent fans being harmed. At some large concerts, counterfeit tickets have been found, and there have even been cases where forged overseas IDs were used domestically.

Ticket prices are also rising rapidly. According to the Korea Performing Arts Box Office Information System (KOPIS), the average ticket price increased by 53% over four years, from 83,540 KRW in 2020 to 128,100 KRW in 2024. In the first half of this year, ticket sales reached a record high of 741.4 billion KRW.

An official from a major concert planning company commented, "There are limits to what crackdowns and reward systems can achieve. Korea also needs to overhaul its official resale structure, strengthen platform accountability, raise penalty surcharges, and supplement the real-name system, just as other countries have done, in order to implement more robust structural reforms."

Lee Eunhee, Professor of Consumer Studies at Inha University, diagnosed, "With the increase in macro-based ticketing and proxy purchases for the purpose of scalping, it has become virtually impossible for individuals to obtain tickets through legitimate channels." She added, "Even if the law is amended to restrict macros, there is a shortage of personnel to monitor this, so an active reporting and reception system must be established for the market to normalize, even to a small extent." She also pointed out, "Although damages occur every year, the current legal penalties remain weak. If punishments are strengthened, suppliers will have no choice but to be more cautious, and the system must also address the fact that it is excessively easy to obtain scalped tickets online."