Overheated ticket frenzy for Cho Seong-jin concert

“Looking for Cho Seong-jin’s concert tickets. Willing to pay any price.” This is the title of an article that was posted on an online bulletin board on Friday before the collaboration concert between Cho Seong-jin (22·pictured), the winner of the Chopin Competition 2015, and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.

The ticket prices for the concert that was held at Seoul Arts Center in Seocho-gu, Seoul, initially ranged from 8.2 dollars to 61.7 dollars, but they were priced at around 132.3 dollars to 308.6 dollars on Ticketbay, a tickets-reseller website in Korea. This journalist visited a tickets-reseller website and looked for the tickets in person, and the ticket owner demanded a staggering 441 dollars. The ticket prices for Cho Seong-jin’s concert were skyrocketing as they were immediately sold out on the first day in November last year. Avid fans posted writings on websites, looking for a way to get the much-coveted tickets.

The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra took an unconventional measure of posting a notice on its website to explain the process of receiving tickets. “We are checking the name and phone number of the persons who booked their tickets when handing them out as there have been a number of fraudulent tickets trading cases,” said an official from the city orchestra. “As for transferred tickets, we are double-checking the information of the person who transferred tickets.”

Cho's Thursday concert was held in five months after Chopin Competition Winner`s Gala Concert on Feb. 2. Back then, the competition drew much attention by attracting a number of ticket scalpers, which is quite unusual for a classical music concert.

김동욱 기자creating@donga.com