Seats Gone in 5 Seconds: The Reality of Scalping Soaring 41-Fold, from 190,000 Won to 8 Million Won [War Against Scalping]

① Suspected Scalping Reports in Pro Sports Surge 41-Fold in Five Years
75% of 3,400 Online Reports Linked to Music Performances
Top 1% of Sellers Account for 40% of Transaction Volume
Macro Programs and Fake IDs Spread Despite Technical Cou

Panoramic view of a large concert hall. Pixabay

At the Oasis concert held last month at Goyang Sports Complex, a man in his 60s was seen confirming physical tickets with two women in their 20s before exchanging cash. After completing the transaction, the man immediately left the area, while around the venue, others who were unable to secure tickets could be seen showing their phones and appearing to negotiate prices. Tickets originally priced between 100,000 and 400,000 won soared to over 1 million won online, and all of these scenes were suspected to be illegal ticket scalping.

At popular cultural and sports events such as K-pop concerts and professional baseball games, tickets often sell out as soon as they go on sale, making the competition for reservations increasingly fierce. For high-demand events, waiting numbers can reach into the hundreds of thousands the moment ticketing opens, leading to complaints that "ticketing itself is meaningless."

On secondhand platforms, posts such as "Multiple VIP seats secured together" are appearing one after another. VIP seats for music performances have seen prices skyrocket to 20 to 30 times their face value. For example, a VIP seat for the NCT WISH concert, originally priced at 198,000 won, was recently traded for up to 8 million won. Tickets for the Seventeen fan meeting (original price: 110,000 won) rose to 6.5 million won. This year, VIP seats for the G-Dragon concert, originally 220,000 won, were traded for up to 6.8 million won (31 times the original price), and VIP seats for the Lim Youngwoong concert soared from 187,000 won to 3 million won. Playoff tickets for professional baseball (original price: 75,000 won) rose to 800,000 won, and even tickets for the LG Twins intrasquad game, which are issued for free (with a 1,000 won fee), were traded for over 80,000 won.

◆ Suspected Scalping Cases on the Rise... Platforms Left as 'Blind Spots' = According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on November 19, suspected cases of online scalping in professional sports rose from 6,237 in 2020 to 184,933 in 2024 and 259,334 as of August 2025. This represents an increase of more than 41 times over five years. Of the 32,013 scalping reports received by the Korea Professional Sports Association’s Scalping Report Center in 2025, 78.7% (25,188 cases) occurred on Ticketbay.

The same trend is observed in the performance sector. According to the Korea Creative Content Agency's Scalping Monitoring Center, the number of reports increased from 359 in 2020 to 4,224 in 2022-more than a tenfold increase. In 2023, there were 2,161 cases, and in 2024, there were 2,224 cases, maintaining an annual level of over 2,000. Of the 3,400 scalping reports received between January 2023 and July 2024 (a period of one year and seven months), 75% were related to music performances. There are also criticisms that private trading spaces such as secondhand trading applications and social networking services are left as regulatory blind spots, as it is difficult under current law to hold platforms responsible.

In 2024, Ticketbay recorded 44,160 scalpers and 298,253 transactions. Among them, the top 1% of sellers (441 people) accounted for 122,745 transactions, representing 41.2% of the total. These top sellers generated a total transaction amount of 2,986,400,000 won, with an average annual profit of about 67 million won per person. The overall market size is estimated to exceed 100 billion won per year.

◆ 'Proxy Ticketing and ID Transfers'... Scalpers Becoming More Organized = Full-time scalpers are operating in increasingly organized ways. They use macro programs to secure large numbers of popular seats, and if market prices do not rise sufficiently, they hold onto tickets instead of canceling them, adjusting the timing of their transactions. They also use various loopholes such as 'ID transfer,' 'proxy ticketing,' 'direct link,' and 'pre-sale rights trading' to secure seats or circumvent standard booking processes.

As cases increase where entire blocks of seats disappear as soon as ticketing opens, the number of seats available to general buyers continues to decrease. In response, K-pop agencies are expanding pre-sale structures based on fan club memberships and paid tiers, but these measures are seen as having limited effectiveness in curbing scalping. In fact, at some fan meetings and concerts this year, many empty seats were observed on the day of the event despite announcements of "sold out" shows. Among fans, there is speculation that scalpers intentionally do not cancel tickets to maintain high prices.

The National Tax Service recently launched a tax investigation into 17 professional scalpers (including three corporations) among the top 1% of sellers on ticket trading platforms who are strongly suspected of tax evasion. Ahn Deoksu, Director of the Investigation Bureau at the National Tax Service, stated, "These are corporate-type scalpers, including public institution employees and private school teachers," estimating that the value of tickets they distributed over several years is at least 22 billion won.

Lee Jueun (34), who lives in Bulgwang-dong, Seoul, said, "I logged in as soon as ticketing opened, but my waiting number was in the 90,000s. In the end, I had no choice but to buy a scalped ticket for 350,000 won." Shin Jaeyong (42), an office worker, said, "I tried to book tickets for the Lim Youngwoong concert for my parents but failed, so I looked into secondhand trading and ended up being scammed. Now, I automatically report suspicious posts, but nothing ever improves."

As scalping damages surge, there are growing concerns that government response personnel are severely lacking. The "Online Scalping Report Center" operated by the Korea Creative Content Agency has only one staff member dedicated to performances, making it impossible to handle the tens of thousands of annual reports in the concert and sports sectors.

◆ 'Structural Problems' Remain Despite Technological and Real-Name Measures = Concert organizers and ticketing platforms are strengthening technical measures, but their effectiveness is limited. Major ticketing sites such as Yes24 and Interpark are enhancing anti-bot verification, but it is difficult to keep pace with the development of new macros. Strengthening real-name verification, including requiring ID card photos, has sparked controversy over excessive personal information demands and has even led to innocent fans being harmed. At some large-scale events, counterfeit tickets have circulated, and there have been confirmed cases of fake IDs produced overseas being used domestically.

Ticket prices are also rising rapidly. According to the Korea Performing Arts Box Office Information System (KOPIS), the average ticket price increased from 83,540 won in 2020 to 128,100 won in 2024, a 53% rise over four years. In the first half of this year, ticket sales reached 741.4 billion won, marking an all-time high.

An official from a major concert planning company stated, "There are limits to relying solely on crackdowns and reward systems. Korea also needs to overhaul its official resale structure, strengthen platform accountability, raise fines, and reinforce the real-name system, just as is done overseas, in order to implement stronger structural reforms."

Lee Eunhee, a professor of consumer studies at Inha University, diagnosed, "With the increase in macro ticketing and proxy purchases for the purpose of scalping, it has become virtually impossible for individuals to obtain tickets through normal channels." She added, "Even if the law is revised to restrict macros, there is a shortage of personnel to monitor violations, so an active reporting and response system must be established for the market to normalize, even slightly." She also pointed out, "Damages occur every year, but the current legal penalties remain weak. If penalties are strengthened, suppliers will have no choice but to be more cautious, and the excessively easy access to scalped tickets online must also be managed institutionally."