Supercharged’ AI Bots Are Disrupting the Ticketing Market. The Industry Is Desperate for a Solution
Categoria: Musica
RAYE and Sam Fender have both had ticket sales disrupted in recent weeks.
Por Billboard | 03/11/2026
Since the mid-19th century, London’s iconic Royal Albert Hall has catered to discerning fans of pop and classical music over thousands of events. But when RAYE announced an intimate one-off show at the venue for Oct. 23, demand reached unprecedented levels — or so she thought. Writing on her Instagram on Oct. 13, the British star revealed that she had received 1.8 million registrations for the 5,000-capacity show, claiming that “AI bots” had disrupted the sale. She said that “hundreds of thousands of fake registrations” had been made for the presale process, which required fans to pre-register for a potential code to buy tickets. “It is a new world we are living in now, I have never witnessed bots on this scale. It is so important to me that fans can buy tickets at the face value price.” In the end, her team had to go through and review each registration themselves to ensure tickets went into the hands of real fans. Related The Science Behind Ticketing: How Artists & Their Teams Price Tours Kenny MacPherson, Veteran Music Publisher and Big Deal Music Co-Founder, Dies at 71 Diddy Moved From New Jersey Prison to Similar Facility in Pennsylvania Last week (Oct. 21), Sam Fender experienced similar when a presale for his Proper Massive stadium tour in the U.K. and Ireland in June 2027 was impacted by a “sophisticated bot attack” on the ticketing site Gigantic. As a result, the presale was moved by 24 hours to ensure “real fans get the tickets,” Fender wrote on his Instagram. Gigantic said that there was an “unusually high volume of suspicious activity” and that “fans should be able to buy tickets fairly, and that is what we’re working to make sure happens.” Live music and ticketing are now the latest AI battleground, where bots are able to consume show onsales in effort to get tickets. Spending on music tourism in the U.K. for live music and festivals reached £11.2 billion ($15.04 billion), according to a recent report from U.K. Music , with 24.7 million music tourists, both domestic and foreign, attending events in 2025. The issues arise amid growing demand for the U.K. government to take control of the situation. In its 2024 election manifesto, the Labour Party pledged to cap the resale of tickets for large cultural events in music, sports and beyond at face value, effectively wiping out the secondary ticket market where passes for major events are sold for vast sums. Artists such as The Cure, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, Radiohead and more have all backed the move and it is considered personally important to Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Two years on, however, and the changes are still some way off. In May, the industry reacted with dismay when the legislation was announced to still be in the draft phase and would not feature in the upcoming parliamentary session, which runs until May 2027. Last month, The Guardian reported that a bill was being drafted to help combat the risk that touts could buy from abroad to avoid the ban. Similar bans h