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Tickets for Ed Sheeran's Singapore concert on April 26 still available
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Ed Sheeran performs on the stage of the 65th Sanremo Song Festival on February 14, 2015 at the Ariston Theatre in Sanremo, Italy. (shutterstock.com/Andrea Raffin/File)
T
ickets to British star Ed Sheeran's biggest show in Singapore to date at the National Stadium on April 26 are still selling hours after they first went on sale on Thursday morning at 10 a.m.
As of 5 p.m. on Thursday, tickets are still available in the standing pen ($158) and several seated sections ($158 and $248).Other ticket categories, $68 and $98, however are sold out. The managing director of promoters Lushington Entertainments, which is organizing the show with promoters AEG presents, Mr Michael Roche, says that there are a limited number of tickets left.
"I'm confident that all the tickets will sell out," he tells The Straits Times.
Fans queued at ticketing agency SportsHubTix's physical counters such as the Singapore Indoor Stadium box office while those who went online also had to queue virtually.
The virtual queue lasted more than an hour in the morning and early afternoon on Thursday. By late afternoon however, buyers could buy the tickets online almost immediately.
In contrast, tickets to Sheeran's two-night concert in Nov last year (2017) here sold out quickly after they went on sale in May last year although it was at a smaller venue, the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
About 20,000 fans attended both nights then. Tickets to the first night sold out within 40 minutes while the second night, added after all the initial tickets were gone, sold out within about five hours.
The organizers for Sheeran's upcoming National Stadium concert have not revealed the number of tickets available but fellow British act Coldplay quickly sold out more than 100,000 tickets over two nights at the same venue last year(2017).
Sheeran also sold-out his 5,000-capacity The Star Theatre show in 2015.
Read also: Boy band Westlife reunite, team up with Ed Sheeran
Unlike in his past concerts here, the concert organisers have implemented verification measures for Sheeran's National Stadium show, a move designed to counter ticket scalpers.
Buyers can only purchase up to four tickets each and they will have their names printed on them. Their companions will have to enter together with the ticket buyer, who has to show a photo ID and upon request, proof of purchase at the concert entrance. Those who receive the tickets as a gift will have to get an authorisation letter from Sports Hub Tix before the concert day.
The verification system was also implemented in a concert by British singer and One Direction member Harry Styles at The Star Theatre last year (2017).
This may have put off a number of scalpers - a bane of the live music industry - who try to make a quick profit by re-selling tickets on sites such as Carousell, Viagogo and Stubhub. Tickets to Sheeran's concert last year was resold for up to 54 times their original price on Viagogo, for example.
Still, despite the verification measures, and the fact that the tickets are still available, scalpers are still trying to resell Sheeran tickets online.
A Carousell seller is selling a pair of tickets at $1,100 each while Stubhub is selling them for as much as $1,900 a piece.
Those who purchase these re-sold tickets risk being denied access to the concert as Sports Hub Tix states on its website: "Resold ticket(s) may be cancelled without refund, and any person who is found to have purchased resale tickets will not be able to gain entry to the venue."
This article appeared on The Straits Times newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
