Suppose you were online last Saturday when ticket selling for Filipino-American singer Olivia Rodrigo's upcoming GUTS: World Tour concert stop in Manila, which is slated to happen on October 5 at the Philippine Arena, became a metaphorical virtual stampede. In that case, you'd know how many people were trying to get their hands on these flat-rate Silver Star Show tickets. TL;DR: The tickets are all being sold for the kababayan-friendly price of P1,500 (!) but the catch is, you don't know which section you'll be seated in until the day of the concert.
And as with any high demand and limited supply—yup, we remember that from our Econ classes—opportunists a.k.a. scalpers could take advantage of the situation by jacking up the prices for the tickets they managed to cop. Or at least, they tried.
What Happened During Olivia Rodrigo's Manila Concert Ticket Online Selling?
Let us set the scene for you: As early as 8 a.m., people were scrambling to join the online queue on the SM Tickets' website. By the time ticket selling started at 10 a.m., over 700,000 people had lined up to try their luck. Some of the people trying to get tickets were reportedly getting kicked out just as they were paying for the ticket, resulting in rejoining the queue.
With that context in mind, it's not surprising that some super fans would choose to buy from resellers. You can see where this is going…
In a viral post on Facebook, one aspiring ticket reseller shared that they have nine tickets up for grabs for P10,000 each. After they saw the ~demand~ for tickets, the OP decided to increase the price to P15,000 per ticket. Um, a bit of a steep climb from the original P1,500 right?
What's the bad news for ticket resellers?
However, vigilant social media users soon discovered that any ticket scalping may be for naught. Live Nation PH, the concert promoter for this leg of Olivia's GUTS tour, shared some guidelines beforehand.
The most important thing, CG, is that any tickets bought during the online sale will have the name of the SM Tickets account owner printed on them. Another v v important detail: they're non-transferable. The icing on the sweet, sweet cake? Ticket owners will need to present a valid ID that matches the name on the ticket before they will be allowed to enter.
So yup, technically any resellers would have to actually watch the concert themselves and enter the Philippine Arena with their ~customers~. Otherwise, the ticket will be invalidated and may result in denied entry. If the reseller ends up ghosting you on concert day, you've been scammed. Yikes!
