Ariana Grande Manchester Concert: 10,000 People Fraudulently Attempt To Claim Free Tickets

Just over two weeks after the deadly Manchester terrorist attack that left 22 people dead, music fans across Europe are expected to come together to attend the One Love Manchester concert featuring Ariana Grande who will come back to perform in the same city she was last month. However, with just one day left for the mega event, the sales outlet managing the ticketing for the event claimed that more than 10,000 people had fraudulently applied for free tickets for the concert.

According to a report by the Washington Post, the organizers of the concert had kept aside a good number of tickets that were supposed to be distributed for free to people who had attended the concert last time. However, Ticketmaster, the company that handles ticketing for the event, earlier today revealed that more than 25,000 people had applied for those tickets free. This, in spite of the fact that there were only 14,000 people in all for Ariana Grande’s previous concert where the terrorist attack took place. According to the company, more than “10,000 unscrupulous applications” for the free tickets have been made so far.

Ticketmaster also revealed in a blog post that they are working hard to ensure that those who were genuinely present at the previous concert will receive their free tickets.

“Overnight Ticketmaster processed a further 4,000 tickets for genuine fans, which is a total of 12,000 now processed out of the 14,200 we have set aside for genuine fans who were at the show on 22nd May, to go to One Love Manchester this Sunday. Registration has now closed, but we would like to reassure customers that we are still working through hundreds of applications and if they can verify that they were at the original show, they will get their tickets,” the company confirmed.

While there hasn’t been confirmation of actual numbers, the new One Love Manchester concert is likely to attract a crowd of more than 49,000 people. In fact, 14,000 of the attendees would be the same people that attended the previous, ill-fated concert, while 35,000 additional tickets were sold in just under 20 minutes, taking the total tally to just under 50,000 people. The event is to be held at the famous Emirates Old Trafford cricket ground, which can house over 50,000 people. Some of the tickets sold via Ticketmaster also appeared on eBay at inflated prices, a source from Ticketmaster confirmed. Both the companies subsequently made efforts to stop the reselling of tickets.

Meanwhile, Ariana earlier today visited the hospital in which several of the victims are still being treated.

Ariana Grande makes surprise visit to fans injured in Manchester terror attack. https://t.co/esCuKI9jWY pic.twitter.com/o9hKDCBNj2

— LADbible (@ladbible) June 2, 2017

Sunday’s One Love Manchester concert will feature Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Usher, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Coldplay, and Pharrell Williams among others. Proceeds from the concert will go to a fund that has been created to help the families of the victims of the Manchester attack. The concert was announced just days after the Manchester attack last month, the responsibility of which was taken up by ISIS.

The attacker who carried out the suicide bombing was later identified as Salman Ramadan Abedi, a 22-year-old British Muslim of Libyan ancestry. Abedi’s ISIS connection was confirmed after ISIS issued a statement on May 23 saying that the attack was carried out by “a soldier of the Khilafah.” The message described that attack as “an endeavor to terrorize the mushrikin, and in response to their transgressions against the lands of the Muslims.” According to Abedi’s sister, he might have plotted the attacks as revenge for the killing of civilian Syrian children in American airstrikes. The investigation into the attack is still underway, and as of now, authorities believe that Abedi acted on his own.

[Featured Image by Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Images]