G-Dragon concert ticket bots and scalpers kept at bay

The Star

01-06-2025

G Dragon also announced a world tour to go along with his new album. — Handout
PETALING JAYA: As Malaysia's concerts and events continue to generate substantial profits, they are increasingly attracting the attention of unscrupulous parties seeking to exploit the booming industry.
During South Korean singer G-Dragon (pic)'s three-day concert ticket sale, over 600 million attempts, suspected to be from ticket bots and scalpers, were thwarted by the event organiser.
In response to the huge traffic and malicious attempts to breach its ticketing platforms, Star Planet managing director Datuk Alan Foo said they implemented advanced bot detection and verification measures, including Captcha, to safeguard the integrity of the sales process.
'Our ticketing platform's global security and traffic management system – including Cloudflare and Queue-it – successfully blocked over 600 million malicious or suspicious requests,' he said.
Foo acknowledged that due to the overwhelming demand of over 4.5 million users entering the virtual waiting room, some scalpers managed to get through the security measures put in place.
For this, he said Star Planet had identified transactions associated with unauthorised resale and invalidated those tickets.
'We strongly advise fans not to purchase tickets from unofficial sources to avoid the risk of cancellation and disappointment,' Foo added.
He also confirmed that there may be another round of ticket sales once the unauthorised tickets were identified and cancelled by the organiser.
G-Dragon, whose real name is Kwon Ji-yong and a member of South Korean idol group BigBang, is widely known as the King of K-Pop.
The singer's entertainment agency Galaxy Corporation said in a statement that fraudulent tickets or tickets resold at a price exceeding the official sale price will be invalidated.
Checks on social media found that scalpers were selling his concert tickets in Kuala Lumpur for more than RM20,000.
For the record, the most expensive ticket for the artiste's tour in Malaysia, scheduled next month, is about RM1,300, which includes exclusive perks.
This prompted backlash from fans, calling out the organiser for allegedly failing to curb the problem, and demanding accountability and transparency.
One of them was Siti Aishah Hashim, 29, who was devastated after she could not buy pre-sale tickets despite joining his fan club.
She found them resold at inflated prices online by scalpers.
Another fan Shahril Nazdi, 30, urged the organiser to take action against those found securing the tickets through illegal channels.
Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations chief executive officer Saravanan Thambirajah said a law to oversee the scalping issue should be expedited, referring to a proposal in 2023 when a similar problem occurred during British rock band Coldplay's concert ticket sales.
'Countries like the United Kingdom and Singapore have already enacted targeted legislation to deal with this issue effectively. Malaysia, too, must move in this direction,' he said.
In 2023, the government, through the Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Ministry and the Communications Ministry, said it would study the legal provisions to prevent scalping.
Pertubuhan Mesra Pengguna vice-president Azlin Othman advised consumers to always go for recognised channels when buying concert tickets.
She also urged the government to expedite the enactment of a law to curb scalping and further protect consumers.
Meanwhile, the Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Ministry said it is actively looking into specific legislation to curb the issue and is committed to taking into account the interests of stakeholders.
'This is to ensure that enforcement could be done effectively and this approach is important before a legal framework is finalised,' it said in a statement to The Star.
The ministry advised consumers to lodge complaints against scalpers through its official channels.