Thursday kicks-off the 48th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, but many prospective eventgoers are furious after tickets soared way out of their price range for more than 10 times their face value.
The festival, which premieres dozens of films from September 7 to 17, has been met with incredibly high demand. Tickets to films like “Dumb Money,” featuring Pete Davidson and Seth Rogan, and “Next Goal Wins” with Michael Fassbender and Elisabeth Moss, are being resold for upwards $400 on Ticketmaster.
Eventgoers took to social media to complain about the high prices, as they were originally up-for-grabs during the presale for around $20. Now, people are paying hundreds to see a single movie.
Hey @TIFF_NET I will not be attending this year not because of the lack of stars (they are rightfully supporting the strike) but because you allowed Ticketmaster to gouge real cinema fans with greedy resale prices. I will not return until this is fixed.
— K Kitagawa (@kylekitagawa) September 5, 2023
Those who scalp tickets like this should be fined $1000 every per ticket they sell #TIFF23 @Ticketmaster pic.twitter.com/ybHIlwBNeG
— Nay.Nay is ready for spooky season (@MemerNayNay) September 5, 2023
Really wish you would stop relying on ticketmaster for your film festival @TIFF_NET. In no world should people be able to buy 20 dollar movie tickets and then sell them for a mark up of 2000% pic.twitter.com/XuwrMjzj24
— aves (@cementlover99) August 31, 2023
Film Festivities should never be in the business of the goulish & disgusting practice of reselling tickets at 4x+ the face value thru @Ticketmaster or sites of the like.
Miyazaki's final film is being scalped at $300+ USD. Until this changes, I will never attend @TIFF_NET again.— The XWF Outlaw (@XWFOUTLAW) August 29, 2023
Filmmaker Siddhant Adlakha even brought attention to the issue, calling Ticketmaster a “scourge.”
“Ticketmaster is a scourge and using it as an official ticketing platform for a film festival is incredibly bizarre,” Adlakha said on X. “It’s genuinely insane that people are allowed to buy and re-sell TIFF tickets pretty much the day they go on sale. The new Miyazaki is going for over $300 US.”
Ticketmaster’s scalping practices are not new; this year alone, the ticketing giant has been under fire for its disastrous Taylor Swift fiasco. Tickets to Swift’s Eras Tour were already hard enough to score during Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan presale — which included errors and glitches — but then, fans were met with outrageous prices due to dynamic pricing. Following marked-up resale prices, Swifities in Toronto even filed a petition against the ticketing site.
