Adele Fends Off Scalpers With Songkick Partnership

Adele has teamed up with online ticket sales specialists Songkick to curb scalping on her upcoming 25 world tour, The New York Times reports.

Tickets for Adele’s North American trek went on sale today, Thursday, and the partnership proved fruitful for her sold-out European tour. Songkick, which manages sales through an artist’s website or fan club, said it sold 235,000 tickets — including 40 percent of sales in Britain — for the 25 tour via Adele’s site and was able to block 53,000 sales to known or likely scalpers.

Although one estimate suggests Songkick helped Adele fans save approximately $6.5 million in markups, some users complained about logistical challenges, and others noted they could see the personal information of other buyers while checking out.

Songkick, however, downplayed the glitches. In a statement, according to Billboard, a spokesperson wrote, “at no time was anyone able to access another person’s password, nor their payment or credit card details (which are not retained by Songkick).”

Adele is the latest artist to partner with Songkick, which started as a site for concert listings, but expanded its operations after merging with CrowdSurge, a company that deals in ticketing for artist fan clubs. Since the merger the company has tripled its sales and has worked with Paul McCartney, Metallica and Kenny Chesney. Songkick is expected to add $10 million in new investment from Access Industries, a conglomerate that also owns Warner Music Group.

Adele is also the latest major artist to join growing efforts to stomp out scalping. The New York state attorney general recently launched an investigation into resale listings on sites like StubHub after tickets for Bruce Springsteen’s 2016 tour popped up days before general sale began.