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BTS fans DENIED concert tickets as 'broken' Ticketmaster site sells to scalpers instead

BTS fans were furious that Ticketmaster let scalpers buy tickets in bulk so that they could resell them on Facebook at 8 to 9 times the official price

Members of BTS have been away from their beloved fans for a long time now. Right at the start of the pandemic, the group had to indefinitely postpone their 'Map of the Soul Tour,' which was a planned worldwide concert tour over months. The tour was announced in January of 2020 and was set to begin on April 11, 2020, at the Seoul Olympic Stadium in Seoul, South Korea.

Following that a two-day online concert, titled BTS 'Map of the Soul ON:E', was held on October 10–11, 2020 that was planned to help fan tide over the postponed world tour announcement. The concert was then followed by many other online concerts by BTS, which were attended by fans all over the world. But what fans really wanted was the chance to attend in-person, live concerts. With a very heavy heart, members of BTS announced that the postponed world tour, 'Map of the Soul Tour' was canceled on August 19, 2021, due to uncertain circumstances and concerns over Covid-19.

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BTS' offline concert

On September 28, the BTS announced that their first concert for the year 2021 titled,  ‘Permission To Dance On Stage’ would also have an offline segment. That means that along with the virtual concert on October 24, the septet will be flying to Los Angeles where they will be performing in front of a live audience. The offline concert is supposed to be held for four days and BTS will be performing at LA’s SoFi Stadium on November 27, 28, December 1, and 2.

Tickets for the offline concert were put on sale on October 6 and went on until October 9. These tickets were sold on the Tickermaster website, a platform used for the sale of many American concerts by major artists. The platform posted a set of instructions that mentioned that the tickets will only be made available for 'verified fans'. They also posted a notification saying, "While 'Verified Fan' doesn’t guarantee that everyone will get a ticket, it does help ensure only fans are invited to buy tickets."

Scalpers buy BTS tickets

Despite this, many fans noticed that the concert tickets were purchased by scalpers — people who buy a bulk of tickets for any event and resell them at a much higher price. Fans reported screenshots of public conversations from Facebook where the said scalpers sold BTS concert tickets to any fan at almost 8 to 9 times the regular ticket prices.

ARMYs who are genuine fans of BTS were not able to purchase the tickets from the platform and were continually met with an error warning as they were unable to meet the criteria set by Ticketmaster. These fans were furious that the platform let scalpers get access to the tickets who are now trying to make a huge profit off the tickets and are not even keeping it lowkey as they are publically discussing resale of these tickets at a much higher price.

ARMYs upset with Ticketmaster

One fan posted the conversation between scalpers and fans from Facebook showing how they are making a sale of concert tickets illegally as they said, "Everything is on a FB public page. Meaning that I am not responsible for sharing the names of these people since all the information is public. The Ticketmaster system is beyond ridiculous and broken. We should do something." Another fan complained, "At this point BTS tix shouldn't even be sold on Ticketmaster. Fuck all these western Ticket sellers. Weverse should just sell them, that way at least ARMY gets tix, not these pieces of shit scalpers."  One fan gave the idea, "Guess dont buy resells from trash scalpers after a while they will put them back on ticketmaster at face price, I know how tempting it is to just buy one to save yourself panic, I also didnt get a single ticket but donf let them win! Fighting Army!"

One fan said, "#ticketmaster is endorsing a f**king scam so scalpers can resale tickets without consequences. Does everything have to be riddled with corruption? #PTD_ON_STAGE deserved better." One very angry fan said, "Whoever, ths is NOT RIGHT. I've waited 6 yrs to see them & @Ticketmaster robbed me of 3 tours. They are no better than the scalpers! Shame on you!" Another fan warned, "Me @ @Ticketmaster @TMFanSupport if y'all don't revoke the scalped tickets from scalpers, i s2g... not only did you boot SO MANY of us out of line, you let scalpers/your buddies in???? do better."