What fans need to know about ticket flipping for Taylor Swift’s Toronto leg of tour

Taylor Swift tickets and the resale market Catherine Moore, professor of music technology and digital media discusses the ticket resale market and how ticket flipping works.

Amid the frenzy of Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour coming to Canada, the ticket resale market is buzzing with action, and some resellers have already listed tickets for purchase as fans grapple for a chance to see the singer perform.

Tickets to certain dates of Swift's six shows in Toronto became available Friday, however, the price of some resale tickets are close to an eye-popping $20,000.

Catherine Moore, professor of music technology and digital media at the University of Toronto, told CTV’s Your Morning on Friday the resale market is a place where those who have tickets can sell and those who do not have tickets can buy.

"I think some of these sites were created so that if someone bought a ticket, and for whatever reason wasn't able to go, they didn't just lose their money. But it's because so commercial," said Moore. "The only limit on price is what people will pay on a secondary market."

Resale sites like StubHub have concert tickets listed on sale for between $3,000 and $5,000.

Moore said the concert or event ticket resale market works in such a way so tickets are rarely affordable.

"One is the actual ticket price. These days because of the secondary market, face value doesn't really mean anything. It's only the value for a very short amount of time," said Moore.

"I think where people would appreciate more transparency is where does the money go from the surcharges on, for instance, that $2,800 ticket? Often the surcharges are a percentage of what that ticket costs so that's creating a pool of money that will get distributed," explained Moore.

Taylor Swift announced on Aug 3. she would perform in Canada during the 2024 leg of her international tour after Canadian backlash to being excluded from the initially announced dates.

The singer will be performing next year from Nov. 14 to 16, and 21 to 23 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

Ticketmaster said they are spreading out ticket presales for the six shows over multiple days to avoid online technical issues Swift fans may have encountered for past shows.

Buyers must have already registered for and received a "verified fan" sale code in order to get in the virtual queue for the tickets.

To watch the full interview, click the video at the top of this article.

With files from The Canadian Press