Hello? Is Adele Scalping Her Own Tickets?

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Adele’s United States tour concert tickets are so in demand that they sold out of most locales within just minutes and there were many that were “scalped” — that is, bought by individuals or outlets with the intention to be resold at much higher prices in order to make financial profit, or reportedly “held back” by the venue for various reasons.

Although Rolling Stone magazine reported that Adele was very unhappy with the scalping of the tickets and her manager reportedly stated to the magazine that the intention was never to have prices driven as high as they have been — in some cases, a single ticket is selling for eight hundred dollars.

“We did everything within our power to get as many tickets as possible into the hands of fans.”

As noted by Ticket News, it is slightly disingenuous to state anything else — of course they want concert tickets to wind up in the hands of fans — the situation allegedly being now in the hands of the fans that will pay the highest price to purchase said ticket.

Of course, this is not a new practice, and basic economics indicates that if demand is greater than supply, the supply will automatically become more valuable. While many people were hoping to get an opportunity to see Adele live, it was assumed to be at prices comparable to similar artists and seating at similar venues. Those prices generally range from $39 to $109 dollars depending on locale, venue, and seating.

With any popular artist or sports event, it’s inevitable that some tickets will be bought by scalpers — individuals who are fortunate enough to be able to get through on busy call lines or internet services to ticket sales outlets. Their intention is not to go see the celebrity or event themselves, but to sell the tickets for profit. That’s capitalism, and that’s legal, but that is said to be a practice that Adele very much dislikes.

However, Ticket News is making an argument that Adele set up a perfect storm for this to happen — first by restricting supply (amount of concerts). In some cities, she did schedule back to back concerts, such as Washington, D.C., on October 10 and 11. But these were immediately sold out within minutes, as were her three night shows in New York City. Adele’s management certainly knew this would happen, as Adele’s new album, 25, broke multiple sales records within days of release. Adele’s return to the music scene has been much anticipated, as she has been on more than a three-year break while having a child, dealing with vocal cord injury and surgery, and making a new album after her smash hit, 21, which also broke records across the globe. It would certainly have been possible to double the amount of concerts, since she partnered with Ticketmaster, which morphed reasonably priced tickets into $750 VIP packages.

There was no doubt this was bound to happen, particularly since it is rumored that only about 50 percent of the available tickets went up for sale, with the rest being held back for prestigious guests, such as politicians, celebrities, and friends and business partners. These seats are not sold, rather given as complimentary packages, and are often the best seats in the house. Many ticket industry experts have demanded that the venues and artist provide information about how many tickets are available to the general public versus how many seats the venue holds. Adele has not provided that information, nor has any other artist, but Ticket News notes that Adele has been more publicly vocal about the fact that she dislikes sales inflation of her tickets.

By trying to manipulate the market and teaming with the biggest reseller in the world, her tickets were slated to be out of realm for the vast majority of the public. By not scheduling more concerts to the tour, and the fact that less than 50 percent of the tour’s tickets were available for purchase by the general public, she left the true fan base saying “hello from the outside.”

[Image by Getty Images]