If you haven't kept up with all of the Harry Styles going on tour business, then you most likely know of the Verified Fan system Ticketmaster has. I personally signed up for the system because of course like any other One Direction fan, I wanted to see Harry Styles in concert. They sent out a tweet stating that emails with codes would go out by midnight, and many people did receive them by midnight. They also said that codes would come out 2-4 hours before the sale starts.
I did not receive a code and when you do not get a code you do not get tickets.
Harry Styles' tour sold out in under a minute world wide, the U.K. shows sold out in ten seconds. However, scalpers have gotten ahold of these tickets and the Verified Fan system is not 100 percent fair.
Let's start off with the venues, which was not Harry's fault but they chose venues that would not hold a lot of people. There was roughly 700,000 tickets total for this tour, which out of the entire population, is not a lot. This means that only 700,000 fans got a code that worked, and was able to get tickets within mere seconds of them going on sale. I have a friend who got a code for a show in California and she did not even get tickets because they were selling so fast. So I will let the reason slide a little bit.
However, let us now get into how this #VerifiedFan course works. Like I said fans sign up within a certain period and that period ends at a certain time. I believe they give you about a week to sign up. We can pretty much look at this as a lottery, but you'd have a better chance winning the lottery than winning these tickets.
The email thanks you for signing up and states the code will be in your inbox 2-4 hours before the sale. Which does not make much sense to have to wake up early and automatically have your day ruined when you do not have a code (which is what happened to me this morning, I was not a happy camper). I also believe that Ticketmaster has just recently started doing this because I know for a fact they did it with Ed Sheeran and now Halsey with her big arena tour coming up.
Ticketmaster claims that the #VerifiedFan is a safe way to assure tickets for fans who receive codes and that scalpers are caught. That is a total bogus lie because scalpers in fact have gotten ahold of these tickets and are selling them for THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of dollars. A lot of people, especially die hard One Direction fans, are fuming with rage that a scalper was able to get tickets but someone who has never seen Harry live before, still never gets to see Harry live. I know I was mad this morning when I found out someone was reselling their tickets for $14,000. Totally not acceptable whatsoever. The system is rigged because even people who do not even know who Harry is, gets to see him in person.
Personally I have a solution to the problem, and it's also something I assumed they were going to do because if you are going to be a Verified Fan, you would think you would have to know more than his name and what band he was in. I assumed they were going to give us a quiz to see how much we know about Harry or how much we love him. I would have gotten a 100% on that quiz and I would have tickets in my hand. I think that would be a great solution rather than letting your rigged system allow scalpers to sell tickets for prices that nobody can afford just so you can make some money off of someone who has worked incredibly hard for such a personal album Harry is giving us.
Will I email Ticketmaster about this problem? You bet I will, this is unacceptable. I have loved One Direction since they became a band in 2010 and I actually have "Girl Almighty" with five arrows tattooed on my arm, I did not get it tattooed on my arm to let this happen. Who knows, maybe they will feel bad and give me some backstage passes if I am persuasive enough.
