Fans show up to Shawn Mendes concert a year early

Some eager fans of Canadian singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes were left disappointed last week after they arrived at the Pittsburgh PPG Paints Arena only to find out the 6 August performance was actually scheduled for 2019.

As reported by Ticket News, fans took to Twitter to point out their mistake. Father of seven Bob Rice shared a picture of himself and his family outside the venue, saying: “We got tickets for the Shawn Mendes concert on August 6. However, getting here we realised it was for 2019.

“And we weren’t the only ones! We will be back next year!”

https://twitter.com/therealbobrice/status/1026601710750445570

Other fans who had travelled from further afield were more reluctant to see the humour in their mixup. “Sooooo [sic] @ShawnMendes I appreciate you selling your 2019 tour tickets this early, but my friends and I all just drove 6 hrs to Pittsburgh to the PPG Paints Arena to see you in concert, a YEAR in advance,” one fan tweeted.

The mixup is the consequence of Mendes using the increasingly popular “slow ticketing” method for selling seats for his upcoming 2019 concerts. In a bid to keep tickets out of the hands of touts and in the hands of real fans, ticketers are turning to slow ticketing as a means to stop tickets selling out in seconds and reappearing shortly after on secondary ticketing websites for extortionate prices.

“Sooooo [sic] @ShawnMendes I appreciate you selling your 2019 tour tickets this early, but my friends and I all just drove 6 hrs to Pittsburgh to the PPG Paints Arena to see you in concert, a YEAR in advance”

Slow ticketing sees more charged for tickets, in the hopes this will put touts off of buying them because of the smaller profit margins. By beginning onsales earlier, ticketers ensure there is ample time for tickets to still sell out.

For his 2019 self-titled tour, Mendes also used Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan scheme. Fans who are in the market to buy tickets give over their names, contact details and social media handles so that they can be verified as humans, not ticket bots. They’re then put on a list to buy tickets, which they “push” to the front of by buying “day-one” access, merch and music from the artist.

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