Concert, flight to Melbourne cheaper than buying a scalped Electric Avenue ticket
Wednesday, 29 October 2025
A Christchurch man has booked flights to Australia to see Kesha perform for less money than it would cost to buy a ticket from a scalper to see the pop star perform at Electric Avenue in his home city.
The two-day music festival at Hagley Park in February sold out in less than 20 minutes, with more than 200,000 fans vying for just 90,000 tickets.
As a result, an underground resale market has exploded across Trade Me and Facebook, with scalpers charging double the original price and scammers stealing thousands from desperate fans.
Scalper made $11k in 48 hours
The festival features a lineup of more than 50 acts, including the reunion of Kiwi band Split Enz, pop icon Kesha, drum and bass group Pendulum, and British dance music royalty Basement Jaxx and Leftfield.
Tickets sold for around $199 for a single day and $390 for two.
But scalpers – people who re-sell tickets at inflated prices – have been making more than double what they paid for them.
An anonymous man called “JD” allegedly bought 17 tickets at $350 each.
His friend told The Press JD got his mates to wait in the queue for tickets and use his card for whoever got access first. The tickets were then re-sold for $900-$1000 on Facebook. Within 48 hours, JD had supposedly made $11,000.
Cheaper to see concert in Melbourne
Kesha superfan Lennon Cameron missed out on tickets to the pop star's New Zealand debut at Electric Avenue.
Despite being in the top 0.005% of her listeners globally, he's booked flights to Melbourne instead – because it's cheaper than buying a scalped ticket to Electric Ave.
'It's $150 per Kesha ticket in Melbourne, plus $500 return flights – that's still cheaper than dealing with scalpers here,' he said.
'For years I've been one of her biggest fans, and it's incredibly disappointing that people like me miss out because of scalpers.'
'He blocked me after I sent the money'
But many fans trying to buy resale tickets aren't dealing with scalpers at all – they're being scammed by people who take the money and vanish.
Christchurch women Tayla Evett and Stevie - who did not want her last name used – each lost $800 to scammers on an unofficial Electric Avenue ticket reselling page with almost 4000 members.
Evett was tricked by someone sending voice recordings and fake ticket screenshots.
“He had me thinking he was from here, but when I contacted my bank they said it wasn't even a New Zealand bank account,” she said. “He blocked me after I sent the money.”
Stevie’s loss was particularly painful – the $800 was birthday money her family had pooled together for her 18th birthday.
The seller sent fake screenshots of the “transferred ticket”, and then blocked her.
Quinn Steed from Southland was initially scammed out of $600 trying to buy a ticket off Trade Me.
He'd asked for the seller's driver's licence first – a tip from detective friends – but the seller didn’t send the ticket after receiving payment.
After six weeks of back and forth with the seller, Steed filed a police report.
After enlightening the scammer of the report, the money suddenly appeared in his account – but the ticket never did.
Organiser warns tickets bought from scalpers can get cancelled
Electric Avenue Team Event director Callam Mitchell said the only official resale platform is Moshtix, which is due to open soon.
Tickets on Moshtix can only be sold for a maximum of 110% of the original price.
Mitchell anticipates about 2000 tickets will become available, but urges buyers to avoid unauthorised resellers entirely, as over the years they’ve seen many stories of people being burned through third-party sites.
Their policy is to cancel all tickets purchased under scalpers names when they are identified, so Mitchell recommended buyers only use Moshtix.