I took out a £1,000 loan to buy Taylor Swift gig tickets from touts – this has to stop | Personal Finance | Finance
Damian Smyth paid over £1,000 for two Taylor Swift tickets (Image: Damian Smyth)
A father took on short-term debt to afford two Taylor Swift tickets for him and his daughter. After failing to secure tickets through the official ballot, Damian Smyth’s only option was to pay hugely inflated resale prices for a pair of tickets being sold by touts. The experience cost him more than £1,000, with tickets priced at around £500 each.
New research from O2 shows that 38% of purchases on secondary ticketing sites last year were funded by short-term loans. Music fans were faced with the choice between missing out on seeing their favourite act or paying sky-high prices. The Government has announced plans to clamp down on ticket touts, with the resale of tickets above face value set to be criminalised from November.
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Driven by the desire not to disappoint his young daughter, Mr Smyth, from South London, was forced to pay comfortably over face value for two Taylor Swift tickets. He relied on short-term credit to split the cost of the tickets, but feels anger at the touts exploiting fans.
He told Express.co.uk: “Demand for the Taylor Swift show was massive, with tickets only allocated on a ballot basis, which we didn’t manage to secure. My daughter – who was 13 at the time – was so excited to see the show that we looked for any available tickets, with the only ones left on uncapped resale ticketing sites.”
He added: “I didn’t have any expectations about being able to get tickets through other channels, but I was shocked at the figures involved on these sites and incredibly frustrated that I had to spend way over the price just to avoid disappointing my daughter.”
Taylor Swift brought The Eras Tour to the UK in the summer of 2024, performing in Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cardiff and London. The tour attracted nearly 1.2 million fans and set records as the most in-demand live show of the year.
Around 1.2 million people attended Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour (Image: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Mr Smyth purchased his tickets on the day of the event. He explained how he was motivated by his daughter’s excitement and couldn’t find an alternative way to get his hands on the coveted tickets.
“It was a last‑minute decision – we bought tickets on the day of the gig – and my daughter’s excitement was my primary motivator,” he said. “She had spent a lot of time researching and looking for cheaper tickets, but we always knew we would have to pay over the odds to make her happy.
“Using a short‑term loan meant that I could split the payment over a few months and absorb it into my outgoings to make it affordable, so we just decided to go for it. However, we definitely ended up spending more than we intended to a month out from the gig.”
Research shows that 15% of purchases on uncapped ticket resale websites were funded by short-term loans last year. Meanwhile, 23% were funded by Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) schemes.
Mr Smyth was motivated by his daughter’s excitement (Image: Damian Smyth)
Although Mr Smyth had a plan in place to repay his short-term loan, the statistics revealed that 22% of people cut back on everyday essentials to pay for inflated tickets. This included cutting back on food and heating.
Mr Smyth is concerned that touts are “taking advantage of young girls” who are excited to see their favourite performers. However, he noted that the Taylor Swift gig was an “amazing concert and an incredible experience with my daughter”.
He added, “But I’m 100% supportive of the Government bringing in legislation to cap resale. Music and sport are two of our family passions, and we’ve been left with no real choice other than to use these sites. I want to see more done to protect buyers from touts.”
It is believed that ticket touts currently cost music fans around £145 million extra a year. Experts are calling on the Government to act quickly to clamp down on greedy resale sites.
The government is set to clamp down on ticket touts (Image: Getty)
Government to introduce new rules banning ticket touts
The Government is set to introduce a price cap on the resale of live event tickets. This will make it illegal for tickets to concerts, theatre, comedy, sport and other live events to be resold for more than their original cost.
New legislation will mean resale platforms will have a legal duty to comply with the price cap. Anyone who is caught reselling tickets for more than their original value will be banned from the practice.
Gareth Griffiths, director of partnerships and sponsorship at Virgin Media O2, said: “Music fans should not be forced into debt in order to line the pockets of greedy ticket touts – they should have the right to see their favourite artists live, at a price decided by the artist themselves.
“Music fans have been ripped off by ticket touts for far too long, and O2 is urging the Government to act now, save music fans hundreds of millions of pounds and bring in laws to protect our gigs and world-leading live music economy.”
Adam Webb, campaign manager at FanFair Alliance, said: “These findings from O2 are hugely concerning and highlight how rampant online ticket touting continues to exploit the passions of genuine music fans.
“It is now imperative that the Government makes good on their commitment to stop this industrial-scale rip off by introducing a cap on ticket resale prices in the next King’s Speech. Without that action, we will continue to see online touts and overseas resale platforms drain hundreds of millions of pounds from the bank accounts of British music lovers.”
O2’s online information hub, Stamp It Tout, offers tips to help people make informed ticketing purchases and avoid being ripped off by touts.
