Four people have been arrested for illegally reselling tickets to a Snow Man theater show for more than seven times the original price.
Ueda Yusuke, 53, an unemployed man from Chiryu, Aichi Prefecture and Liu Yuan, 43, a Chinese part-time worker from Anjo, Aichi Prefecture, are among those arrested.
According to police, last year, the four suspects resold tickets to “Takizawa Kabuki ZERO 2022” to a 25 year old woman for ¥50,000, compared to the original price of ¥7,000, in violation of laws pertaining to such acts.
In addition, the ring is suspected of reselling tickets to the SixTONES musical “Ryusei no Neiro” to a 24 year old woman for ¥40,000, compared to the original price of ¥5,500.
The four suspects are thought to have sold 970 tickets over the past three and a half years, making more than ¥70 million in their scheme.
Ticket reselling in Japan is rampant. At the SixTONES concert in Nagoya this past February, tickets that were originally selling for ¥9,300 were being resold online for over ¥100,000. Fans were interviewed at the concert venue about the issue of reselling. Opinions ranged. One female fan in her 20s, upon seeing the high resell prices online, questioned if she should go to the concert or resell her ticket for a profit. Another female fan in her 20s couldn’t get a ticket in the regular sale, causing her to buy a resell ticket at a 250% markup. A teenage female fan just wished the whole resell thing would stop.
Yahoo News
