Tears in the rain: Will Hayley Williams crackdown on ticket bots work, or are we fighting a losing battle?
Hayley Williams announced, along with her tour dates, that she was making a conscious effort to crack down on one of the biggest problems that plagues the modern music industry: ticket bots and reselling.
While people attest that there is no money in the music industry, and some still manage to find ways to scrape a profit from it, the problem is that most of those who make this money are ones who don’t contribute to the industry.
Touring is one of the last sacred havens in the music industry. As technology seems to continually impede the creative process, and the means by which people promote their music involves becoming a social media influencer, seeing your favourite artist live is one of the only truly unique and human experiences that we have left.
There are a lot of reasons why the art form continues to be such an important outlet for so many people, but I believe one of the most pivotal is the live experience, where listening to music allows you to tap into emotions that you might otherwise suppress. There’s already a pinch of magic in that fact; however, when you throw in a live gig into the mix, you add another sprinkle of fairy dust onto it. Suddenly, those deep emotions aren’t just explored, they’re celebrated in a group of like-minded people, establishing some form of connection, of electricity, between all of those in the room watching.
With that in mind, everyone should have access to live music; it’s pretty non-negotiable when it comes to art doing its job, which is essentially making the world less of a lonely place. When you play on stage, you want to make sure that the people you’re playing to are the people who want to listen. A gig can be just as euphoric for an artist as it can be for a fan, and that’s the power of that connection in full flow once again.
What is the problem with ticket bots and reselling?
As seems to be the case with everything in the artistic world, good things always come with caveats, and in the modern age, they present themselves in the form of bot farms. These register for tickets for in-demand live shows, buy them all as soon as they come on sale, and then sell them at exponential rates. In other words, these are some of the only people making money from the music industry. It’s torturous for fans and artists, and for the longest time, people have been content with letting it happen, but now, things are changing.
Just today, some of the biggest names in the British music industry have signed an open letter which would cap the prices on secondary tickets. This letter came as a result of the government declaration in January 2025 that they would be clamping down on ticket touts following controversy about the price of tickets that have gone up for resale. Stars such as Dua Lipa, Coldplay, New Order, Iron Maiden and Sam Fender have all signed this letter, which demands that concerts be more accessible for fans.
There is certainly an argument surrounding whether the onus should be on the artists or the government to cut down on ticket touts; however, it seems that Hayley Williams isn’t willing to wait around for the elected bodies to get to work. She is one of the newest artists attempting to crack down on scammers and bots buying tickets for shows and reselling them at eye-watering prices, and she intends to do this by implementing a new ticketing system.
What is Hayley Williams’ new system?
Williams announced alongside her tour dates that she was going to be using a platform called Openstage to try and stop ticketing bots from exploiting her tour. “I want to get tickets into the hands of my fans,” she said, “At a price that is as reasonable as I could get.”
Talking about Openstage specifically, she explained to fans how the platform is supposed to stop bots from purchasing tickets. “In short,” she said, “I’m trying out a platform called Openstage to host a verified presale registration. Openstage’s fan validation system helps verify human fans and reduce bots and scalpers, giving my fans a better chance to access tickets.”
Her system means that listeners who were interested in going to the shows would need to register within a 24-hour window of the announcement, and this added layer is supposed to stop bots from purchasing and selling tickets on secondary sites. In order to register, fans would need to validate a phone number and email address, which would prove they were human, and subsequently will allow them to access an unlock code that will get them their ticket.
Will Hayley Williams’ new ticketing system work?
Williams’ attempt to ensure that her fans have the best chance of getting to her show is commendable, but it also begs the question of whether it is all in vain. Technology continues to advance in leaps and bounds, and the measures which need to be put in place to stop people taking advantage of it seem to be constantly expanding.
Far Out reached out to Jake Moore, the Global Cybersecurity Advisor for ESET, to ask about the feasibility of the measures put in place by Williams. He agreed that this new layer of security will help prevent bots from buying tickets; however, it isn’t a complete wall of defence.
“These checks make it harder for bots, but they are not completely foolproof for determined touts or fraudsters,” he said. “You can get around phone and email verification in several ways, so organisers and fans should treat the measures as a useful extra layer but not as a complete solution. High profile acts that are likely to sell out quickly (like Oasis) attract the most determined and therefore, an extra layer like this won’t hold out much to those desperate to make some money.”
Moore explained how bots are able to get around these security measures: “For example,” he said, “scammers use virtual number services which provide temporary SMS numbers that can receive verification messages. Fraudsters use these to create many ‘verified’ accounts easily and at scale quickly. Doubled up with disposable email addresses, it can be easy to carry this out without linking it to a real identity.”
When Openstage had these reservations put to them, they acknowledged that while the measures they put in place have their shortcomings, the proof that they work remains evident. “During the Oasis Live ‘25 dates in the UK, only 0.5% of Unlock allocations reached resale markets, compared to over 9% of tickets from the general sale,” explained Chief Product Officer, Rob Abelow, “Proof that the best way to stop bots and reward real fans is to make every fan come through the artist’s own front door.”
Abelow also spoke about the platform’s commitment to fan validation. “Fan validation is something we take seriously at Openstage,” he said, “That’s why we’ve built an evolving, multi-layered defence system that artists can deploy to protect their fans. Email and phone 2FA are partial safeguards; one small piece of our ten-layer fan validation framework, most of which operates invisibly to fans.”
What Williams and Openstage are doing is commendable, and the good news is that these added measures seem to have a positive impact. There is another question surrounding the longevity of such platforms, such that you expect that bots will find ways around such safeguards, with the way tech is constantly evolving. However, just because people abusing technology are difficult to fight against, doesn’t mean the creative world shouldn’t try.
As we hold on to the final segments of what makes music one of the most beautiful art forms there is, artists should do their utmost to ensure that fans can experience their work in all forms, which Williams is currently setting the standard for. Depending on how high-profile concert sales like this go could determine the future for ticketing events, and so long as fans have a better chance of seeing their favourite artists live, people will more than likely be happy to go through a few extra layers of security.
