Tegan and Sara Offering 200 'Pay What You Can' Seats After Tickets End Up on Secondary Market
Tegan and Sara
Rock siblings Tegan and Sara are offering more than 200 "pay what you can" tickets for their show at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco Tuesday night (Oct. 1). The last-minute offer for fans comes after the twins realized that a large amount of their inventory for this evening’s show had been “gobbled up by secondary tickets platforms during [their] tour onsale in July.”
“While the show tonight is technically sold out, many of these tickets are now being flooded back into the market for re-sale,” the artists wrote in an Instagram post. “Because there is little time to sell and we never ask our fans to go to secondary sites, this will likely result in empty seats tonight in the Sydney Goldstein Theater.”
The post continues: “Our goal is to ensure that our real fans are in each and every seat, and to prevent secondary platforms from hurting our show. As an experiment, tonight in San Francisco we will be offering rush seating for all open seats, at approximately 8:15pm. This means that we will allow any empty seats to be available on a "first come first serve” basis in return for a “pay what you can” cash donation at the door to The Tegan and Sara Foundation, which works to support LGBTQ+ girls and women.”
Tegan and Sara added that after analyzing the secondary site that they estimate that over 200 seats will be available for fans who arrive at the theater this evening. Seating is not guaranteed for anyone who shows up at 8:15 p.m. PST.
“We will be continuing to work on this frustrating problem this week and will keep everyone posted on rush seating and ticket availability to upcoming shows. We can’t wait to see you!” Tegan and Sara concluded in the post.
Representatives for Tegan and Sara informed Billboard that the artists may implement the same strategy for their next few shows in order to get real fans in the seats and keep profits out of the secondary market. Tegan and Sara are scheduled to play the Aladdin Theater in Portland on Oct. 3 and two shows at Benaroya Hall in Seattle on Oct. 4.
The duo is currently embarking on a mostly sold-out tour to promote its ninth studio album, Hey, I’m Just Like You, and the joint memoir High School, both of which were released Sept. 27.
