Tegan and Sara took a bold step on Tuesday to combat sales of their concert tickets on the secondary market.
The Canadian pop duo offered “real fans” the opportunity to see the show on a pay-what-you-can basis.
“It has come to our attention that significant numbers of tickets to our show tonight in San Francisco were unethically gobbled up by secondary ticketing platforms during our tour onsale in July,” they explained via social media. "While the show tonight is technically sold out, many of these tickets are now being flooded back into the market for re-sale. 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.”
The Quin sisters said they were launching an experiment wherein open seats will be given to fans in exchange for a cash donation to The Tegan and Sara Foundation.
“After analyzing the secondary sites, we estimate we may have over 200 seats to fill at the last minute tonight,” they said.
Tegan and Sara are currently on their Hey, I’m Just Like You tour in support of their just-released album of the same name. They play Vancouver on Saturday followed by shows in Edmonton on Oct. 9, their hometown Calgary on Oct. 10, Winnipeg on Oct. 12, Toronto on Oct. 18 and 19, Ottawa on Oct. 22, and Montreal on Oct. 23.
All those shows are technically sold out, but Tegan and Sara promised: “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.”