Sam Fender has postponed a presale for a homecoming show at Newcastle’s St. James’ Park stadium next summer following a reported “sophisticated bot attack.” The first tickets for Fender’s Proper Massive stadium tour in the U.K. and Ireland next summer began on Wednesday morning (Oct. 28) with eligible fans able to purchase tickets for the events via presale.
Fender will kick off the run at St. James’ Park in his hometown Newcastle, England on June 3, 2027 followed by shows in Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester and two shows at London’s Wembley Stadium.
The presale for the three shows at St. James Park, held on Gigantic, however, was paused on Wednesday morning with Fender breaking the news via his Instagram Stories. “Being told by the promoters that there’s been a sophisticated bot attack to the Gigantic ticket site which is impacting the St James’ Park pre-sale,” he wrote.
“We’re having to move the Newcastle pre-sale to 9.30 a.m. tomorrow [Thursday, Oct 29] to ensure real fans get the tickets,” he concluded.
Billboard U.K. has approached the show’s promoters SJM Concerts and Communion One for comment.
The presales for the remaining shows are being held on Ticketmaster, and are reported to be unaffected. A general sale for all shows will commence at 9:30 a.m. on Friday (Oct. 30).
Fender is not the first act to be hit with alleged bot attacks during the ticket buying process. RAYE’s ticket sale for her show at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Oct. 23 was disrupted by “AI bots” and “scalpers,” with the star revealing that “hundreds of thousands of fake registrations” has been made for the ticket sale. She reported that 1.8 million registrations were counted for the 5,000-capacity show.
Over the weekend, Fender expressed dismay with the prices of his own ticket prices saying that they had been “inflated” beyond his expectations and called them “bollocks.” They were ultimately revised, and the proposed front-standing section was removed.
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