Another day, another concert scam on Facebook
Another day, another concert scam on Facebook
Please don't buy tickets for The Weeknd's Auckland shows like this. It's likely you're wasting your $$.
I don’t go on Facebook much these days, but when I do, I inevitably get served masses of sponsored posts for concerts and music festivals. Sometimes, that’s helpful. I like knowing when things are happening so I can get tickets for shows.
This time, it was not. As I scrolled, an ad got my attention. It urged me to buy tickets for The Weeknd’s upcoming New Zealand tour. Those shows are part of the pop star’s After Hours til Dawn world tour, which hits Eden Park on December 8 and 9.
I wasn’t planning on going. I loved Trilogy, a compilation of The Weeknd’s initial mixtapes, including ‘House of Balloons’ and ‘Loft Music’. But as Abel Tesfaye’s popularity has increased, so has his predictability. Besides, he rarely plays his old songs live anymore. (Also: I have seen The Idol.)
But this ad seemed determined to change my opinion. “Time is running out!” it screamed. “Hurry and secure your tickets today! … Act now and save big!” It was urgent. It sounded intense. I paused and looked a little closer. It was from a Facebook page called Event Promoters Hub, and it linked to a website called Fans Near.
I hadn’t heard of either of those before.
On the surface, it sounds like it could be legit. But take a closer look and you can easily spot the problems. First, whoever put this ad together got the name of The Weeknd’s tour wrong, calling it, somewhat hilariously, ‘After Hours Tildown’. They also listed just one of the two shows he’s playing in December.
But it’s the next bit that really got me interested. “Early Bird Tickets are available for only 127 NZD, but their price will increase by 28 NZD every week,” says the ad. What kind of cowboy announces they’re raising ticket prices by $28? Every week? This seems like someone who doesn’t want to sell any tickets at all.
I couldn’t help myself. I had to keep digging. “Enjoy music in reality” says the homepage for Fans Near. It has tickets for dozens of events listed, including Taylor Swift, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Weeknd, Reading and Leeds festivals, Lollapalooza Berlin and Pukkelpop, among many others.
It claims to have sold 315,000 tickets, and its website looks slick enough to be the real deal. It says the right things, has buy now buttons in the right places. It claims to have “partners” including ticketing and touring giants Live Nation and Ticketmaster.
If you read the fine print, you can see what’s really going on. Fans Near’s terms and conditions admits it is “an innovative website that offers event tickets and other add-ons, as offered by event organisers”. Basically, it’s a third-party site that is on-selling tickets, probably at a premium. It passes all liability onto those using its services, and official ticketing agencies. “Your contract is directly with the event organiser,” it says.
Will you get tickets? Dunno! It seems like a gamble. Everything I’ve seen has a strong whiff to it. (You can read through those sketchy conditions for yourself here.) If you need any further evidence not to use Fans Near, I offer you this: the company’s address is in the UK, and when I Googled it, the home at the listed address looks nothing like what you’d expect a high profile ticketing company to be…
A Live Nation rep confirms Fans Near has no official connection to The Weeknd’s New Zealand tour. That spokesperson urged fans to buy tickets through the only official outlets: livenation.co.nz or ticketmaster.co.nz.
This is just one of the many ticketing scams I’ve covered here. They just don’t stop. I’ve covered the ongoing chaos caused by Viagogo, using Lorde tickets as an example. I’ve dug into the insanity that made an event page like Mount Smart Live at Spark Arena Live at Mount Smart occur. I interviewed Andrew Thorn about Silverback Events and Future Rock Fest, a New Zealand festival that, surprise, surprise, never happened. Oh, and I nearly fell for this dumb Facebook trick myself.
One thing could stop all this. It seems incredibly simple. Facebook could stop bogus ticketing companies from promoting themselves on its platform. Unfortunately, it’s incredibly easy to put fake pages together, then promote posts to target people. That would hurt Facebook’s bottom line, so it’s still happening all the time. (I’ve notified Facebook that Event Promoters Hub seems to be dodgy, but the page is still active.)
I’ve also diligently fired off messages to Fans Near, including through its website, and the gmail account attached to its Facebook page, to give those in charge a chance to correct me, to prove my suspicions are wrong, and that it is, in fact, a genuine ticketing company that isn’t trying to bamboozle music fans with subterfuge.
So far, I’ve had no reply, but someone seems to be getting my messages; after I reached out, Fans Near removed their email address from their Facebook page. That tells you everything you need to know, really.
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Your Tuesday morning news dump…
The line-up for Save the b!, a fundraising gig for student radio station bFM, has been released, and it’s incredible. Shihad will play Churn in full, Concord Dawn will perform their final show, alongside Tiny Ruins, Delaney Davidson, Marlon Williams, Princess Chelsea and Voom. Tickets for the Auckland Town Hall show on December 20 are on pre-sale today. You’d be dumb to miss out on this one.
Beth Orton has rescheduled her New Zealand tour, saying she needs a break. The UK singer was due to play Auckland and Wellington in November, but now says she’ll be back in April. “It’s not something I wanted to do, but for my health I need to take a pause,” she said in a statement. Tickets are valid for the new dates: Auckland’s Powerstation on April 20; Wellington’s St James Theatre on April 21.
It’s official: Kelis has left the Bay Dreams line-up. Promoters confirmed the ‘Milkshake’ hitmaker will no longer be headlining the two early January festivals after cancelling all of her foreseeable tour dates, citing fatigue. A replacement is being organised as we speak. (I’ve got a bigger piece planned about summer’s immense festival line-up in the pipeline, so I’ll have more about this soon.)
Josh Homme is living up to his tour promises, with a Queens of the Stone Age tour announcement seeming imminent. On Instagram, the band’s been promoting an Australian and New Zealand tour, including three shows in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The dates aren’t confirmed yet but I’m excited for this one: In Times New Roman is among my favourite albums of 2023.
More pleasing news for hard rock fans: Iron Maiden will fly their private jet back to New Zealand for a Spark Arena show in 2024. The band cancelled its 2020 visit because of Covid, but now promises to make up for it on September 16. Manager Rod Smallwood says it will be “worth the wait”. Tickets go on sale today.
Finally, Taylor Swift’s movie-film is packing out theatres around the world with fans who are singing and dancing in the aisles. I’ll be going as soon as I’m able to, but in the meantime, please enjoy this footage of a fan escaping a mall security guard to swipe an official poster. Those Swifties eh? Never underestimate them.