New data from German metal band Rammstein’s 2023 and 2024 European stadium tours has highlighted the intensive efforts undertaken by the band and their team to keep tickets in the hands of genuine fans.
Working closely with promoter MCT-Agentur, Rammstein implemented a ‘hard personalisation’ policy to protect their audience. To prevent professional scalpers and automated bots from harvesting huge amounts of inventory for resale, tickets were sold under terms and conditions which legally bound each ticket to the named buyer. Any ticket identified as being resold via an unauthorised third-party website was in direct violation of these terms. These tickets were cancelled – not to penalise fans, but to strip away the incentive for unauthorised websites to offer tickets to the concerts.
The process involved a rigorous cycle of data monitoring and the proactive cancellation of suspicious purchase orders before the tour began. On the nights of the shows, MCT operated dedicated troubleshooting desks to support fans who arrived with these cancelled tickets. Rather than simply being turned away, fans were given a clear explanation of why their ticket was invalid and provided with the necessary documentation to help them claim a refund from the third-party site that had misled them.
The scale of this operation was significant. In 2023, seven concerts were monitored with 706 tickets cancelled. This rose to 1,465 tickets across twelve shows in 2024. Unauthorised resale website Viagogo was identified as the primary source of the problem, accounting for around 60% of all cancelled tickets, while roughly 100 fans across the dates arrived with entirely fake or duplicated barcodes.
Despite the larger number of unauthorised resale tickets identified for the 2024 tour, the data suggests that these preventative measures are working. Between 2023 and 2024, a clear shift in reseller behaviour was observed as ticket scalpers were forced to adapt to MCT’s efforts. Bulk purchases were noted to have largely disappeared, a regular occurrence for previous tours, with resellers limiting themselves to just two or three tickets per identity and using plausible email addresses that mimic genuine fans. It was also observed that far fewer Facebook groups associated with fake or fraudulent tickets appeared.
MCT Agentur commented: “Rammstein and MCT invested significant resources to ensure that tickets were not scalped. While personalisation was a successful deterrent after action over the course of several tours, most artists simply don’t have the resources to police their concerts to this extent. We need regulation that prevents these sites from hosting unauthorised listings in the first place, rather than leaving the industry to fight it, or simply accept it at the expense of fans”.