[비즈한국] "I've never seen such high 'premiums' for regular season games. It's not just professional scalpers anymore; regular fans are snapping up multiple tickets or buying tickets for popular teams during pre-sale just to resell them at a markup. With the 'baseball boom' has come an 'illegal ticket boom.'" (Park, 30)
"Premiums for movie stage greeting events are getting worse. Even though there are more than 10 stage greetings a day on the opening weekend, bots sweep up the front-row seats, leaving nothing for others. Since the movie tickets aren't very expensive compared to the potential scalping profit, scalpers don't even bother cancelling unsold seats, leading to empty chairs while fans who really want to go struggle to wait for cancellations." (Yoon Ji-hee, 34)
Scalping Spreads to Stage Greeting Tickets as Actor Fan Service Gains Popularity
The revised Performance Act, intended to prevent illegal ticket trading, was implemented in March of this year, but online scalping continues unabated. The issue, which had long festered in the concert and performing arts scenes, is now spreading to professional sports, including baseball.
Scalping has even reached movie stage greetings hosted by large multiplexes. The stage greetings for the movie 'Veteran 2,' which was a box office hit during the Chuseok holiday, were highly anticipated, but movie fans are already reporting that scalpers have targeted the event.
Veteran has already finalized its stage greeting schedule through the first week of October—the fourth week of its release—with actors set to visit major theaters. With the soaring popularity of the lead actors, the resale of tickets including these stage greetings has also heated up. On the ticket resale platform TicketBay, two consecutive seats in Row C are being sold for the regular price plus a 139,000 won premium, and even single seats in the front Row A are selling for 180,000 to 300,000 won. Yoon Ji-hee pointed out, "You'd wonder who would pay a 100,000 won premium for a movie, but people actually do buy them. Even if there's a collective sentiment to 'not buy so they get released as cancellations,' there will always be someone who does. Because they eventually sell, more scalped tickets keep flooding the market."
Will Solutions Emerge for the Blind Spots in 'Scalping Regulation' Amidst Limited Effectiveness and Side Effects?
The government is not standing idly by. Online scalping, where tickets are traded with added premiums, had long existed in a legal gray area, making enforcement and punishment difficult. In response, the government revised the Performance Act to categorize the purchase of tickets using macro programs followed by resale at a premium as an "unfair sales practice," punishable by up to one year in prison or a fine of up to 10 million won. Previously, only scalping occurring on-site could be fined up to 200,000 won under the Minor Offenses Act established in 1973.
However, these measures appear insufficient to eradicate illegal activities by scalpers. The revised law requires proof of habitual conduct and the use of macro programs, which is difficult to enforce. As even these core measures face limitations in effectiveness, critics point out that the operating territory of scalpers and the resulting inconvenience to users are only growing.
In particular, resale of professional baseball tickets on platforms like Joonggonara, Bungaejangter, Karrot, TicketBay, and X (formerly Twitter) has surged. While scalping was common during the season finale and postseason, it has been rampant throughout the entire regular season this year. The number of online scalping reports for professional sports this year has increased more than eightfold compared to five years ago, with professional baseball accounting for over 96% of total reports.
A Seoul-based office worker identified as A said, "It’s become too hard to get tickets for weekend games in the capital area. I looked into reselling to catch a home game in Daejeon, but a ticket that cost less than 20,000 won was being sold for 70,000 to 80,000 won. Once you factor in round-trip travel costs, the burden of attending even once is significant, making me hesitate." A representative from a pro-baseball team commented, "If the purchase was made through normal procedures at the time of reservation, it is difficult to sanction the reseller even if they add a premium. We are monitoring the situation and doing our best to minimize consumer inconvenience."
The "do-it-yourself" methods used by agencies and platforms—making the ticket purchase and verification process complicated to prevent others from using tickets reserved by someone else—have not been effective. K-pop concerts have been waging a war against scalpers for a long time, but noise persists. There have even been cases of conflict between fans and agencies where fans holding legitimately purchased tickets were unable to enter the venue on time due to excessive verification demands. "A" explained, "As mobile tickets replaced physical ones, the 'ID transfer' method emerged. As identity verification was strengthened, a series of 'side-hustle premium services' appeared, such as swapping IDs or renting smartphones. There is even a trading method where paper wristbands provided during ticket exchange are carefully removed and reapplied to the buyer's wrist for a fee."
An idol fan, B, voiced, "If we only partially block scalping, 'proxy ticketing'—where people pay professionals or those with macro access to do it for them—will become even more prevalent. We need proper countermeasures that consider various circumvention methods."
The government plans to propose raising the punishment for scalping to up to three years in prison, including cases where macros were not used. Based on recommendations from the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, various measures have been proposed, including a total ban on resale at a premium regardless of macro use and provisions for the confiscation of scalping profits. Policies are also being implemented in parallel, such as actively supporting the construction of ticketing systems using new technologies like NFTs with a 2 billion won investment by next year to monitor scalping and prevent macro program use.
A performance industry insider said, "Complete blocking is realistically difficult. Even if legal standards are set, achieving 100% eradication seems unlikely." However, they added, "For now, reports from users who find unfair trading are the most effective. We are also strengthening monitoring for macro programs. If the legal basis for sanctions is established, we believe more active measures will be possible."
Lee Jong-woo, a professor of business administration at Ajou University, noted, "The government making scalping eradication official and taking regulatory action can have the effect of shrinking the scalping market, such as by driving out professional scalpers." He added, "Procedures like personal information verification to prevent unfair reservations and the contraction of existing ticket resale platforms are side effects that may be unavoidable during the institutionalization process. Various means to increase effectiveness must be considered together."