Next Wednesday (October 11), Travis Scott will officially begin his North American Utopia—Circus Maximus Tour in Charlotte, North Carolina. Consisting of 39 dates, the tour’s tickets originally went on sale on August 31, with the 11 dates added afterward going on sale on September 1. However, it now appears that these sales saw many pesky resellers claiming tons of tickets, which led to an interesting debacle a month later.
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On Thursday (October 5), 404 Media released a report addressing why many of the available tickets for the Utopia — Circus Maximus Tour are being sold for a very small amount of money currently. If you check several of the dates on StubHub, a common site for reselling tickets to concerts and sporting events, you’ll notice that some tickets cost around $20, which is much less than they were initially sold for.
404 Media writer Jason Koebler suggests that this is because of a site called PFS Buyers Club. Specializing in “credit card maxing,” PFS Buyers Club is an organization that conjures up methods of buying products instantly and reselling them for profit. In the past, PFS and clients that took their advice would often buy collectible coins made by the U.S. Mint at face value, then re-sell them to make money.
Recently, though, PFS and its members switched to buying concert tickets in bulk and re-selling for profit, which has been a trusted way to make money for many scammers in the past few years. However, when doing so for the Utopia—Circus Maximus Tour, this plan quickly fell apart.
Since Scott will be touring at large arenas, the demand for tickets was not what PFS had anticipated. Thinking fans would be eager to get their hands on tickets at any price, PFS allegedly told members that their return on re-selling Utopia tickets would be around “$ 25 per ticket,” per Koebler. Instead, due to relatively low demand, PFS is projected to lose more than $1 million in this scheme, while those who followed their plan will also be in a significant financial hole.
Koebler notes that if this trend continues and Scott fans’ demand for tickets does not increase, PFS could go out of business entirely.
Photo by Christopher Polk/NBC
