How $17 Richmond concert tickets can end up costing $140
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Professional ticket resellers add an estimated $4.5 billion a year in unnecessary costs for fans going to live events, according to a new Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator report.
Why it matters: Concertgoers pay steep markups on top of the original ticket price, while local venues are often left dealing with angry fans over sales they never made.
Case in point: A Richmond woman paid more than $100 for tickets to last weekend's Madonna dance party at The Broadberry. Her two friends paid $140 each.
- The catch: Tickets were just $17 and still widely available directly from The Broadberry.
- At last month's LiVE LOUD Violent Femmes show at The National, some locals similarly paid around $100 for $62 general admission tickets, according to Lucas Fritz, founder and talent buyer for Broadberry Entertainment Group.
What they're saying: "It happens to so many people. Like literally. So many people," Fritz tells Axios.
- Fritz is the man behind local venues The Broadberry, The Camel and concert series LiVE LOUD, and he books shows for The National and Richmond Music Hall.
- He says concertgoers who unknowingly buy marked-up resale tickets routinely turn to the venues for help, even though the venues weren't involved in the transactions.
The Madonna party customer told Fritz she'd followed an online ad to buy her ticket.
- The Violent Femmes customer found a reseller after Googling the show and clicking the first link — a common issue because secondary ticket sellers can outspend local venues on advertising to be the first result on a search engine result page, Fritz says.
The big picture: Problems in the resale market generally fall into three buckets, Stephen Parker of the National Independent Venue Association tells Axios:
- Speculative ticketing — listings for tickets the seller doesn't actually possess yet — sometimes before the venue has even opened sales.
- Price gouging — what Parker describes as resellers buying tickets and flipping them at steep markups.
- Resale deception — ads, search results or websites that can leave buyers thinking they're purchasing from the venue or primary seller when they're actually on a resale site.
By the numbers: Professional brokers now account for much of the resale market, according to Vanderbilt.
- The report estimates roughly 70% to 80% of secondary market activity comes from professional corporate resellers rather than ordinary fans unloading tickets they can't use.
The other side: Resale platforms and their supporters argue that secondary markets give fans more flexibility to buy and sell tickets and that established platforms can offer protections against counterfeit tickets.
Meanwhile, Virginia has tightened some rules around ticket resale, including a 2023 law that bars resellers from using venue branding, URLs or website designs in ways that could reasonably mislead buyers.
- Yes, but: Virginia does not specifically ban speculative ticketing, and state law generally protects a purchaser's ability to resell tickets online.
Pro tip: To avoid paying a reseller markup, Fritz says, start at the artist's or venue's official website and follow its ticket link.
The bottom line: Before paying $140 for that $17 ticket, check the venue.
Axios' Nate Rau contributed to this report.