Lewis Capaldi ticket scalpers

Photo Credit: Tuomas Vitikainen / CC by 4.0

Over 300 Lewis Capaldi tickets were listed by scalpers on StubHub, placing the secondary ticketing platform under intense scrutiny.

Ticket resale platform StubHub allowed a prolific scalper to advertise more than 300 tickets for a Lewis Capaldi concert. StubHub and its fellow secondary ticketing platform Viagogo are both under scrutiny from UK officials, who are now considering whether to ban for-profit ticket resale platforms in an effort to curb scalping.

Capaldi’s tour, the singer-songwriter’s first after a two-year hiatus, sold out within seconds. That led to disappointed fans expressing their outrage online when resale sites like StubHub and Viagogo began advertising a slew of tickets at large markups.

Both companies say they do not set the prices charged by sellers using their platforms, but that they provide guarantees to ensure fans are protected if anything goes south.

Still, listings analyzed by The Guardian showed that resale company TGCES—whose name StubHub is legally required to disclose because the company sells over 100 tickets a year—advertised at least 306 seats for Capaldi’s opening show at the Sheffield Arena on September 6. Those tickets were listed for more than three times their face value, at £248.

“These listings give very clear reason to suspect industrial-scale criminality,” said ticketing and security expert Reg Walker. “There is no legal way to harvest tickets in such bulk,” he added, remarking that many scalpers do so by using illegal methods like automated bots or multiple accounts—which constitutes fraud.

According to StubHub, the company does not condone the use of bots, but admitted that they were “an issue that takes place on primary platforms.” Therefore, they say, it’s those websites that should do more to deter them.

Walker said it’s likely that companies like TGCES are listing so many tickets through speculative selling. Speculative selling takes place when professional ticket sellers list tickets they do not actually possess, and then try to source for a lower price after the fact. If they’re successful, the sellers pocket the difference. But if they’re not successful, they often cancel the transaction and initiate a refund, leaving the buyer disappointed.

While StubHub did not address TGCES directly, the company said it does not permit speculative selling on its platform.

Last year, TGCES was found to be advertising over 1,500 tickets for the highly anticipated Oasis reunion tour, many of which StubHub removed from the platform after The Guardian approached the company about it. However, TGCES has clearly been permitted to return.

“We enforce strict measures to protect consumers,” said a spokesperson for StubHub. “Any ticket listings found not to be compliant with our requirements are removed.”