Watchdog reports ‘astronomical’ Eras resale prices
Italian consumer group Codacons is making a formal complaint after touts were discovered to be illegally reselling tickets at “stratospheric” prices for Taylor Swift’s sold-out Milan concerts this weekend.
The US superstar brings The Eras Tour to the city’s San Siro Stadium for two nights on 13-14 July for what will be the 34-year-old’s first performances in Italy in 13 years.
An amendment to Italian legislation, introduced to Italy’s 2017 budget law to criminalise ticket touting, prevents tickets being resold for commercial purposes or for above face value.
Codacons has therefore issued an appeal to the authorities after finding tickets being offered for resale on secondary ticketing sites and private sales platforms at “astronomical” prices.
The Rome-headquartered watchdog notes that one site was selling a pair of tickets for more than €13,000, while another was offering a single ticket for €4,677. In addition, tickets priced up to €3,000 could be found on eBay.
“We are witnessing a despicable speculation that exploits the strong demand for tickets for the American artist’s concerts to make an illegitimate profit”
“Once again we are witnessing a despicable speculation that exploits the strong demand for tickets for the American artist’s concerts to make an illegitimate profit,” says Codacons president Carlo Rienzi. “For this reason, we will file a complaint with the Antitrust and Prosecutor’s Office, asking not only to investigate those responsible for the possible crime of stock market manipulation, but also to seize and block the web pages where tickets are sold at prices outside the market.”
The shows will be Swift’s first in the country since playing Milan’s Mediolanum Forum as part of her 2011 Speak Now World Tour.
Elsewhere in Europe, Eventim temporarily postponed the resale for The Eras Tour‘s German leg back earlier this year after hackers attempted to steal digital tickets for the concerts. It was reported in April, meanwhile, that UK Swifties are estimated to have lost over £1 million (€1.2m) in a wave of online scams since tickets went on sale for the European leg of the outing last July, according to data from Lloyds Bank.
Post Milan, the record-shattering trek will continue to Germany, Poland, Austria and England, where the European leg wraps up at London’s Wembley Stadium in August, before resuming in North America in October. Swift recently confirmed the tour will conclude in December.
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A year in the live of Laura Pausini
… To celebrate her remarkable year, Adam Woods talks to the team that has taken her spectacular Simili production around the world
In summer 2007, in the pouring rain, Italian star Laura Pausini became the first woman ever to headline Milan’s San Siro Stadium. Two years later, following the devastating earthquake in the central Italian town of L’Aquila, she returned, with 42 other female singers, to raise money for local charities.
This summer, she managed to raise the stakes again, with two nights at the 80,018-capacity San Siro as part of a full-scale tour of Italian stadiums – the first two-night San Siro stand and the first Italian stadium tour for a female artist.
Acknowledging her record-breaking stadium shows in Milan, Pausini tells IQ: “Coming back there this year was amazing – two nights in a row. I was freaking out until the moment I started singing on that enormous stage. I felt that I would be able to embrace all, just like the shape of the stage I drew for this tour.”
Pausini’s was the first two-night San Siro stand and the first Italian stadium tour for a female artist
On her first night at the ‘Meazza’, Pausini made an appropriately weighty dedication from the stage: “Questo concerto è contro la violenza sulle donne” (“This concert is against violence towards women”). After 23 years on top, Pausini remains a major star, and like all such artists, everything she does needs to make a point.
The tour that followed went on to do the same. After five Italian shows, and across two further legs, Pausini toured what you might call the Pausini-speaking world, whirling through North and South American arenas before a set of European dates. For anyone unfamiliar with the 70 million-selling Pausini and her regular world tours, the route is a remarkable one, only partly explained by the fact that she has released both Italian and Spanish versions of eight of her nine most recent albums.
Read the rest of this feature in issue 68 of IQ Magazine.
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