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Frequency Podcast Network. Stories that matter. Podcasts that resonate. The

Taylor Swift era's tour was a global phenomenon.

Are you ready for it? I was a robber. First time that he saw me. Stealing hard to

know. Are you ready for it? Swift had six shows in Toronto, but not all fans were able to get tickets via Ticketmaster or

at all. The resale prices were enormous. Some Swifties turned to third

parties and ended up paying thousands of dollars for a chance to see the concert. So what happened to being able to get concert tickets at a reasonable price, even from a third party? I'm Phil Martino on this episode of The Big Story. We're delving into ticket reselling in Canada and a petition that's urging provincial and federal governments to get involved in the regulation of ticket reselling. More than 13,000 people have signed a petition on change.org calling for the regulation of ticket reselling. It was started by Shannon McCarney from Etobicoke, Ontario. She says for most Canadians, tickets to the Taylor Swift Airs Tour here at home were inaccessible, largely due to the unregulated resale market. According to McCarney, thousands of tickets were immediately bought by resellers and offered up for profit on sites like StubHub, with prices exceeding face value by more than 1,000%.

Really what I saw was a big consumer issue, and that is that Taylor Swift tickets in particular, but other concerts this happens with as well, there's a massive resale market, and there is absolutely no consumer protection. So, for example, there were who have tickets that went on sale for $16, they're behind the stage. Resellers snapped those up and they are now being sold. Currently, the lowest price for one of those is $876 on a $16 ticket. And that's not right. There should be consumer protections in place that keep this from happening, keep this kind of price gouging from affecting people.

Now, what was your experience? Were you trying to get tickets?

Yeah, I mean, I would have, we, so, okay, here's my experience. I actually got Taylor Swift tickets in Sweden because we had been trying to get them for any of the U.S. dates previously. Impossible to get them. The resale prices were enormous. And so my friends and I all got together talking and said, hey, you know what? When the international dates go on sale, maybe we should look at getting those. And so we put together, the bunch of us got together and we all got codes for international dates. And long story short, we ended up getting tickets in Sweden and the entire trip to Sweden cost less than it would have cost just to buy similar tickets for the concert in Toronto. What is your petition calling for? My petition is calling for regulation of ticket resales in Canada and in Ontario. And essentially, there had been some protections in place in 2018. The previous government had put in place protections to say that there needs to be a cap on these resales, that the resellers needed to really give you their name and their contact information, and a few other things like that. That was all scrapped when the next government came in. And we'd like to have those kinds of protections reinstated in Ontario and ideally across Canada so that a ticket gouging like this cannot happen.

Now, have you reached out to the province or to the federal government or is that what you plan to do with your petition? That

is the intent. I mean, I could reach out individually, but just me alone was not going to get, you know, just not going to get very far. My next step is to reach out to both the federal and provincial governments. You're

going to take your petition to them? Yes,

I am. Yeah. And there is also, there's another petition that's going around as well. One that is for the House of Commons directly, and that one has several thousand signatures. But I mean, there are, you know, there are many different ways to solve a problem and many different routes to get to the people who can't solve it. So, yeah, that is my next step is to take it to the government.