Scalpers pounce on free Nightglow tickets
Greedy scalpers are selling “free” Zuru Nightglow tickets to desperate punters for up to $50 a ticket.
Those buying tickets on the secondary market also risk being turned away at the gates, organisers say, as every ticket is numbered.
For context, scalpers will hike Taylor Swift tickets 14 times above the original price, making the 50 times bump of the free Nightglow tickets an exceptionally profitable enterprise for them.
Scalpers pounced on the popular balloon tickets when 30,000 free tickets were allocated within 20 minutes of release. Many people desperately signed up to the wait list but never imagined that they would see tickets offered for sale at exorbitant prices.
Balloons Over Waikato is the city’s most popular free event, with the Nightglow finale always attracting more people than the event can host.
Tickets were introduced in 2023 so the organiser could keep audience numbers at a safe level. Each person is allowed to purchase 10 tickets, this means large families can go together, while still giving everyone a fair chance to get a peek, said Balloons Over Waikato general manager Michele
Connell.
Auckland office worker Phyllis Li has never seen the Nightglow. Missing out on the tickets while she was busy working yesterday morning, she turned to social media for help, asking for three tickets.
“I will reciprocate with a small koha,” she wrote on her post.
Li said she understands people have spent a lot of time and energy getting those tickets – setting an alarm and waiting in front of a screen – so it’s fair to compensate them with a few gold coins. But she was horrified to be offered tickets ranging from $30 to $50 per ticket from four different sellers.
“The tickets were originally free, but scalpers are taking advantage of it. That, to me, is kind of like maliciously seizing resources. Not a great experience for us.”
Two years into a ticketed event, scalping is new to Balloons Over Waikato.
Connell said they have processes on Facebook to manage scalping, so does ticketing company Ticketek, but they won’t be aware of activities happening on other platforms.
“We can’t control those other Facebook pages that get set up by other parties. The message we want the public to know is that do not purchase any tickets to Nightglow, tickets are free,” said Connell.
The team was unaware of the scalping until contacted by Waikato Times.
They considered charging to reduce exploitation but abandoned the idea to keep the event open for everyone, Connell said. Official policy will see any scalpers’ tickets cancelled, and Connell encouraged everyone “to do the right thing”, such as join the waitlist.
Another person who missed out was Auckland man Tim Lan.
“What angers me the most is that someone would still buy it. They’re [the buyers] encouraging this kind of behaviour which would make it more rampant.”
He questioned a seller on social media site Xiao Hong Shu about the $50 cost of a ticket. “You’d be lucky to buy one, my friend,” the seller replied
Scalping isn’t something new to policymakers.
The Labour Government set out to protect consumers from ticket scalpers in 2019, but the reform died silently last year.
Although the Fair Trading Act and the Consumer Guarantees Act exist to protect people from being ripped off by scalpers, the then-Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi likened the Acts to an “ambulance at the bottom of the cliff”.
He said there was growing concern that many New Zealanders were being ripped off by scalping.
Meanwhile Lan was told by others that “real is rational” so the market should be allowed to exist.
But if people profit from it, they’d just get 10 tickets and wouldn’t care if it gets wasted, “that will be totally opposite to what the organisers had hoped to achieve,” he said.
In the 2023 review, Infometrics economist Brad Olsen said it’s important to regulate markets to make sure they function fairly and efficiently.
Currently there are few legal tools to stop scalping other than the Major Events Management Act, which punishes scalpers with $5000 fine for declared major events – events that have potential international significance. While 17 events, such as the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup are a major event, the majority of domestic events, including the NIghtglow, sits outside of this legal protection.