I Resold My Taylor Swift Tickets for an Unthinkable Price. It Changed Everything.

In What It’s Like, people tell us, well, what it’s like to have experiences many of us have not even imagined. This summer, Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour was lauded for generating $5 billion in consumer spending in the United States. Some of the tour’s economic impact trickled down to average concertgoers who were able to turn a major profit on ticket resales. The inflationary nature of the “Eras” tour’s ticket prices left many in disbelief that people were willing and able to pay that much for a single concert. In this entry, we spoke to a Jersey City mother who managed to resell four Taylor Swift tickets for a whopping $20,000. Her ticket sales have been internally verified. 

I had bought Taylor Swift “Eras” tour tickets to celebrate my daughter’s and niece’s eighth grade graduation. I was planning to fly my sister and niece from L.A. out to Jersey City over Memorial Day weekend to catch Taylor’s Saturday show at MetLife Stadium. We’re all pretty big Swifties, and this was going to be a celebratory girls’ night out.

I bought my tickets on Nov. 15, 2022, on Ticketmaster as a verified fan. I remember logging on around 9 or 10 a.m. and only having to wait in line for two hours—I was pretty fortunate and managed to snag four VIP tickets for around $800 each. After Ticketmaster fees, my total ended up coming out to $3,472 for four tickets. The VIP section came with these cute little boxes filled with stickers, glow bracelets, and posters.

We’re not a huge concertgoing family, so this was going to be a big outing for us—my daughter had been begging us to go to the “Eras” tour, and it would be her first-ever concert. I really like Taylor Swift as a performer and think she’s a great role model for the kids. I think the way she puts on a concert is a good representation for young teens (my daughter is 13) and she would make a fantastic first show.

Our show was in May, and in the lead-up to the concert, my daughter and niece listened to all of Taylor’s records, getting ready. Around early April, I went on StubHub, just curious to see how much tickets were going for. I was shocked to find that they were selling for a lot. So, I decided to list them—if I could sell the tickets for $5,000 each, I would let them go. If not, we would go to the show.

The intention was never to buy to sell. I wasn’t a scalper—I had originally bought the tickets because we all wanted to go to the concert. But when I saw how much they were going for, I thought, If I could make five times what I purchased them for, it would be great ROI.

It was my first time ever trying to sell something on StubHub, and the experience ended up being very easy. When I put up my tickets, I stipulated that you had to buy all of them. When I looked at the VIP section, I saw that you couldn’t really get four tickets together, so mine was one of the few where you could get four seats in a row. I selected that I wanted to take home $5,000 each for them, and StubHub listed them for $6,275 each to account for all their fees. I didn’t want to be too greedy and ask for $7,000 or something—I wanted to find a happy medium where it would be worth it for me to give up the seats but also make it possible for them to sell.

About two weeks before the concert, the tickets were purchased. A few weeks later, $20,000 was wired into our bank account! I was so excited I told everyone I knew. That’s a lot of money—there was so much we could do with it. I truly couldn’t believe that people were willing to buy tickets for that amount. I actually ended up looking up the guy who bought my tickets and found out he was the CEO of a company.

When I broke the news to my daughter and niece, they were both really, really disappointed. But I told them we could use the money to do a huge family trip in the summer, and they understood.

So we ended up renting out an entire villa in Vancouver over the summer. That $20,000 paid for a family reunion—I was able to completely cover airfare, lodging, and all meals and activities for 13 people. The house we rented was amazing—six or seven bedrooms, with an elevator and a gorgeous view of the harbor and the water. We went for a week and we did all the sights. We went shopping downtown, saw the Capilano Suspension Bridge, went kayaking, and ate some amazing meals.

Even though my daughter and niece had been sad about missing out on the concert, they were really happy hanging out with each other during that vacation. For a three-hour show, I was able to cover a full weeklong trip for 13 family members. It was definitely worth it.

I still have a hard time believing that people are willing to pay so much for a concert. If you look at the tour now, people are still reselling for such high amounts. At one point, I felt very bad about selling the tickets because the girls really wanted to go, so the weekend of the show, I went on StubHub to see if I could get last-minute tickets. The lowest price tier in the nosebleeds was going for $2,000 per ticket, and I said, “No way.” That was almost as much as I had paid for four tickets originally.

We were also hoping to get tickets in either Toronto or L.A., but prices were just as high in those cities. I think I just got very lucky with the presale on Ticketmaster originally. For me, this was definitely a one-off thing, and I don’t ever plan on doing something like this intentionally. It just so happened that we could make a lot of money on this, and so I took my chances and walked away with $20,000.

I know Taylor is returning to the United States next year for additional dates on the “Eras” tour. I think if we can get the tickets, I would love to take the girls to the concert. But only if I’m able to purchase them at face value.