How ticket bots are changing concert and train ticket sales

Buying concert tickets has long been a risky business; popular events often sell out within minutes.

But fans are increasingly competing against automated ticket-buying programs, often called bots, that can snap up seats in seconds and sell them at higher prices.

This resulted in impaired access not only to concert tickets but also to daily services such as train ticket bookings.

Concert enthusiast Bryce Sng, 23, said buying tickets has always been “very luck-based.” The bot’s added competition“S”It feels very unfair,” he added. Sng said half the fun of fighting for tickets is the stress, and that using a boat feels like it “takes away from the experience.”

Approximately 65% ​​of respondents in a December 2025 survey shared this view with The Singapore Consumers Association said ticket trading was preventing genuine fans from attending events. The survey’s focus group participants also noted that bots snatch tickets within seconds before selling them at higher prices.

Governments including South Korea and China have responded by tightening rules against automatic ticket purchases.

South Korea expands scalping laws Open While Jan. 29 targets behavior that hinders fair ticket acquisition for resale, Chinese regulators have repeatedly warned third-party platforms not to use automated ticket-grabbing software.

On February 12, Beijing market regulators met with 12 companies, including JD.com, Didi and Tencent, regarding rising train ticket sales.strong public criticism.” One 10 April In the announcement, regulators said seven third-party platforms, including Ctrip, Alibaba’sFliggy and Meituanwas invited to regulatory meetings.

China’s railway system completed more than 1.13 billion trips in the first three months of 2026, accordingly National Railway Administration.

Marc Hershberg, Music Theater International’s director of business and legal affairs, said distributing tickets is an inevitable “function of supply and demand.”

While banning bots would help to some extent, Sng said policies alone may not be effective.

“If you know people they always find a different way [around the rules]” he added.

For companies defending against bots IDavid Irecki, chief technology officer of data software company Boomi, said it should be considered more than “a single signal.”

Detecting bots requires analyzing patterns in user data, including transaction and payment signals, purchase speed, purchasing patterns, and credit card activity, rather than relying solely on a single indicator.

Ticketmaster, the main ticketing platform for many concerts, blocks automated software to combat bots, detects and shuts down fake accounts, and cancels orders that violate its policies.

“Brute force bot attacks…represent only part of our fight against scalping,” the company said in an email to CNBC.

“These are extremely complex networks that attempt to adapt to the environment by mimicking human fan behavior.”

In late 2022, Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster faced widespread backlash after mismanaging ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s 2022 ‘Eras’ tour.

Live Nation’s reach $9.9 million settlement A lawsuit was filed with the District of Columbia in April over allegations that it advertised deceptively low prices before adding mandatory fees and used deceptive tactics that created artificial urgency. Live Nation has denied any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

“For at least a decade, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have increased their profits by charging predatory, hidden fees, taking advantage of D.C. residents purchasing tickets for their favorite artist or team and out-pricing others entirely,” said District of Columbia Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb.

Face value tickets for Swift’s “Eras” tour range from $49 to $450, while VIP packages start at $199 and reach $899. On the secondary market, some tickets were listed for $800 to $20,000 each.

The same problem extends to the entertainment industry, Hershberg said.

“Tickets for shows like Hamilton are selling for, say, $2,000 on the resale market, but on Broadway the top ticket price is around $800. That suggests they’re not setting it at an amount that will clear the market.”

But demand far exceeds supply and people are clearly willing to pay higher prices. However, producers who still want to make shows accessible do not want to charge unreasonable prices.

Further complicating the issue, some consumers do not realize they are purchasing tickets from online sellers. Hershberg pointed to Broadway.com, a resale ticket platform whose name often leads many buyers to mistake it for the official distributor of Broadway tickets. CNBC reached out to Broadway.com but did not hear back from the company at the time of publication.

Boomi’s Irecki said the problem goes beyond a singular solution.

“It’s not just about one tool because you need regulation or business policy, but it needs to be re-supported by well-connected systems.”

Hershberg added that the real beneficiaries of these markups are the people with scalps, rather than “the actual individuals who bear the risk and the artists and others who work on the show.”