Sam Fender Moves Newcastle Pre-Sale After Bot Attack on Ticket Site

Sam Fender has moved the pre-sale for his two Newcastle stadium shows after what he described as a "sophisticated bot attack" on the ticketing website.

The pre-sale for the St James' Park dates was due to open on the morning of Wednesday 28 October. It was pushed to 9.30am on Thursday 29 October because of concerns about bots.

Seller Gigantic Tickets said it had found an "unusually high volume of suspicious activity" on its site, which led to error messages.

Fender passed the news to fans himself. "We're going to have to move the Newcastle pre-sale to 9:30 tomorrow to ensure real fans get the tickets," he wrote. Gigantic apologised for the frustration and said: "Fans should be able to buy tickets fairly, and that is what we're working to make sure happens."

Only the Newcastle dates affected

It appears the attack hit only the Newcastle shows. Pre-sales for the other dates, including Wembley Stadium, went ahead as planned.

The South Shields singer announced his 2027 "Proper Massive Stadium Tour" last week. It includes two homecoming nights at St James' Park in June, followed by shows in Cardiff, London, Dublin, Edinburgh and Manchester. Wunderhorse are the support act at the UK stadium dates.

The tour was already in the news over ticket prices. Fender had criticised "inflated" prices and worked to make admission more affordable, scrapping premium front-standing tickets.

Raye also delayed a ticket sale last week for a one-off show in London where she reworked her album "This Music May Contain Hope" with an orchestra. She said there were 1.8 million sign-ups for 5,000 seats, and that the process was overwhelmed by scalpers using AI bots to create hundreds of thousands of fake registrations.

The government has said it will bring in a price cap on secondary ticket sales. Andy Burnham, now Prime Minister, has announced a £45m investment in the music industry and a crackdown on scalpers.

Source: NME