From Music Business Worldwide · · 1m 40s
AI bots disrupt live ticket sales for Raye, Sam Fender, Garth Brooks
AI bots target ticket sales for Raye, Sam Fender, and Garth Brooks, forcing changes in live event ticketing.
In brief
AI bots target ticket sales for Raye, Sam Fender, and Garth Brooks, forcing changes in live event ticketing. AI bots overwhelmed ticket presales for Raye, Sam Fender, and Garth Brooks, prompting new security measures and legal actions to combat bot attacks. Originally reported by Music Business Worldwide.
Bots hit every ticket sale stage
Raye’s presale was targeted before any tickets went on sale, drawing 1.8 million registrations for 5,000 seats.
“Sadly our sign-up process was overwhelmed by scalpers, using AI bots to create hundreds of thousands of fake registrations”
Garth Brooks’ show canceled due to bots
Brooks canceled a Kansas City matinee after 90,000 people in the queue were mostly bots.
“When tickets went on sale that morning, more than 90,000 people were in the queue”
Sam Fender postpones presale
Fender moved Newcastle pre-sale to 9:30am Thursday after bot attacks impacted the site.
“Being told by the promoters that there’s been a sophisticated bot attack to the gigantic ticket site”
Ticketmaster blocks 260 million bot attempts daily
Ticketmaster blocked nearly 260 million bot attempts daily in 2025, per a court filing.
“In 2025, Ticketmaster detected and blocked nearly 260 million attempts daily by bots to access its services”
Bots use fake accounts and spoofed IPs
Key Investment Group created 13,000 Ticketmaster accounts using credit cards and spoofed IP addresses.
“Key Investment Group created or obtained more than 13,000 Ticketmaster accounts”
CAPTCHAs no longer reliable
Researchers solved 100% of Google reCAPTCHA challenges using AI, showing bots bypass human checks.
“In 2024, researchers at ETH Zurich used a modified version of the YOLO image-recognition model to solve 100% of the image challenges set by Google’s reCAPTCHA v2”
Lawmakers push for ticketing reforms
UK plans to ban ticket resale above face value and limit resales per person to combat bots.
“The UK government announced plans to ban the resale of tickets above face value, and to bar individuals from reselling more tickets than they were allowed to buy”
US lawmakers target bot activity
The MAIN Event Ticketing Act requires ticket issuers to enforce purchase limits and report bot circumventions to the FTC.
“The MAIN Event Ticketing Act would require ticket issuers to keep technical controls in place to enforce purchase limits and to report known circumventions to the FTC within 30 days”
Brooks calls for bot activity bans
Brooks urged lawmakers to make bot activity during on-sales illegal, saying it’s unfair for real fans.
“If the powers that be are not going to make scalping illegal, can you please make bot activity during on sales illegal?”
Raye questions ticketing future
Raye admitted AI bots have opened her eyes to the need for new ticketing solutions.
“I’m not sure what the future holds for ticketing, I do know this experience has really opened my eyes”
Here's the gist
AI bots overwhelmed ticket presales for Raye, Sam Fender, and Garth Brooks, prompting new security measures and legal actions to combat bot attacks.
