Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter Tour tickets listed on resale sites ahead of general sale
Presale tickets for Beyoncé's upcoming tour were listed at inflated prices on secondary ticketing sites, Viagogo and Stubhub, before the general sale had even started.
Beyoncé is set to play six dates at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in June 2025, as part of her much anticipated Cowboy Carter tour.
There were a number of chances for fans to secure tickets, including two presale days ahead of the general sale on 14 February.
The face value price of tickets on Ticketmaster was between £71.60 - £950. But on the dates of the presales, Which? found tickets were already listed on resale platforms, with some listings well above the original price.
Buying tickets from unofficial secondary ticketing sites can be risky. Many event organisers don't accept tickets that have been bought through these platforms, meaning you could be turned away upon entry.
You also have fewer rights to a refund if the event is cancelled or postponed if your tickets were brought through these unofficial resale sites.
Read on to see where to buy event tickets safely.
Resale tickets listed for £23,899
Which? found tickets listed for all of Beyoncé's six UK dates on both Stubhub and Viagogo the day before the tour's general sale.
On Viagogo, the tickets were listed for between £118 and £2,961, while on Stubhub the highest price was a staggering £23,899.
According to Ticketmaster – the tour's official ticket platform – the face value cost of tickets is between £71.60 to £950.
At the time of writing, Which? found standing tickets listed on Stubhub for between £292 and £964, and on Viagogo for between £298 and £474, despite the fact tickets are still available through Ticketmaster for £224.85.
The problem with secondary ticketing sites
This isn't the first time we've seen tickets listed for much higher prices on secondary ticketing sites, even before the general sale for an event has started.
Oasis fans experienced this issue last year after the presale for their reunion tour.
As part of a crackdown on ticket touting, the government is exploring whether to introduce a cap on the price of resold tickets for events, among other measures. Which? will be responding to the government's consultation.
Another issue with these sites is that event organisers often only allow you to resell tickets through their official resale partners (such as Twickets).
This means that buying through an unofficial site such as Stubhub or Viagogo could invalidate your ticket and you could be refused entry at the event.
Viagogo ads were banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) last year for implying that tickets were valid for Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour, when they were in fact prohibited.
Which? has asked Live Nation, the organisers of the Cowboy Carter Tour, whether tickets purchased through Stubhub and Viagogo are valid. We'll update this page when we hear more.
What do Viagogo and Stubhub say?
Viagogo told us: 'On Viagogo, fans are protected by our guarantee. We ensure that fans receive their tickets in time for the event and, in the rare event of an issue, we offer them replacement tickets or their money back.
As a marketplace, Viagogo doesn’t sell tickets or set prices. Sellers set the price and fans ultimately decide the ticket value that meets their budget.
Demand will be at its peak when tickets hit the on sale, but it’s not a normal reflection of what tickets can and will go for. The highest prices you see on the platform, by default, have not sold yet.'
Stubhub said: 'Beyoncé tickets on StubHub.co.uk start from under £100 and range depending on the location in the venue. On this occasion, it seems like a seller mis-labelled their ticket price and has since corrected it, as we have reviewed the listings on our platform and cannot find a Beyoncé ticket matching the price Which? quoted in the article.
As a marketplace, we do not set prices - sellers choose their preferred listing price. Prices can, and usually do fluctuate over time, so we advise fans to keep checking prices outside of the first few weeks of sale. We find that tickets priced at exceptionally high levels rarely, if ever, sell.
We are committed to bringing the joy of live events to fans through a safe, trusted and transparent marketplace which is already highly regulated in the UK. Our FanProtect Guarantee provides a comparable replacement ticket or 100% refund in the rare event that anything goes wrong with a ticket and we are proud of our high Trustpilot rating of 4.3 out of 5. We provide a critical alternative to transactions in unregulated spaces where fans are at increased risk of fraud.'
Where to buy event tickets
It’s always advisable to stick to the official ticket seller, which will be found on the artist’s official tour website or event’s official website.
Unfortunately, secondary platforms are sometimes the first results when you type in a tour name into a search engine such as Google, so a quick search can’t always be trusted.
If tickets on the official platform have sold out, your best bet is to use the official resale platforms that don't allow sellers to charge more than the face value of the ticket, such as Twickets or Ticketmaster Fan-to-Fan exchange.
Rocio Concha, Which? director of policy and advocacy, said: 'It's worrying that tickets for Beyonce's 2025 tour are being listed on secondary ticketing sites for up to £23,000 – thousands more than the face value cost of the tickets.
'Fans should be wary of buying tickets from secondary platforms as you have fewer rights if something goes wrong and you risk purchasing from scammers and never receiving your tickets at all.
'The government must use its secondary ticketing consultation to regulate the industry properly, ensure ticket resales don't exploit fans and make the market fairer for consumers.'
