Raye slams ticket bots: 1.8 million sign ups for 5,000 spots

Raye has had to change how tickets go on sale for her one off concert at London's Royal Albert Hall after the sign up system was flooded by scalpers. For the October 23 show, which holds 5,000 seats, the British singer says 1.8 million registrations came in. A large share of those are said to be hundreds of thousands of fake sign ups created with the help of AI bots. "I've never seen bots on this scale before," she wrote in a post on her social media channels.

To stop those scalpers from hijacking the presale, Raye had the list of sign ups checked by hand. Her team put together a selection of people they consider real fans. Those who were chosen received a link and a code for the presale by email on Tuesday, and the presale started shortly afterwards. The remaining tickets go on general sale, which reportedly begins later this week. Raye stressed that it matters to her that fans can buy tickets at face value.

"I don't know what the future holds for ticketing, but this experience has really opened my eyes," she says. Together with her team, she plans to think about what could be done differently going forward. The Royal Albert Hall also said it is investing heavily in protecting its own ticketing systems against automated attacks. According to the venue, artists and venues can't solve the problem on their own, and legislation needs to keep pace with the size and sophistication of the ticketing industry.

In the background, the UK's political debate over resale is ongoing. The government previously announced plans to ban reselling tickets above face value, after dozens of artists, including Dua Lipa, Coldplay and Sam Fender, called for fan protection in an open letter. A draft bill was presented in May, but the music industry and consumer organizations expressed disappointment at the slow pace. The proposal still has to go through further consultation and parliamentary scrutiny before it can become law. The Department for Culture said it remains committed to tackling ticket touting.

At the concert, titled This Symphony May Contain Hope, Raye will perform her second album, This Music May Contain Hope, in a symphonic version alongside the Heritage Orchestra. The concept album, which blends old school jazz with orchestral sounds, blues, big band and soul, reached number one on the UK albums chart and is in the running for the Mercury Prize. Raye previously won a record six Brit Awards for her debut album My 21st Century Blues and headlined Reading and Leeds this summer.

For music fans in the Netherlands, this will sound familiar: bots and resale are a recurring problem for popular shows here too. The story shows that artists themselves are increasingly stepping in with hand picked fan selections, because existing systems can't win the fight against automated mass registrations.