Counterfeit Concert Tickets on the Rise in Country Music

luke-bryan-ticketsWith the rise in popularity of country music recently comes a rise in both the demand and prices for concert tickets. And with so many sold out shows and high-priced tickets comes the opportunity for counterfeiters to take advantage of fans looking for entry to see their favorite artists. Counterfeit concert tickets are on the rise in country music, and fans are being taken advantage of more than ever before as they resort to the secondary market and rely on sites like Craigslist to get tickets.

27-year-old Geoffrey Dean Minton from Tampa, Florida is currently sitting in the Hillsborough County jail on $20,000 bail after being arrested on Tuesday (10-14) on six counts of grand theft, eight counts of possessing forged documents, and two counts of communications fraud. The charges stem from a sting local police set up after Minton sold at least two separate parties counterfeit tickets to Luke Bryan’s concert at the MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre on Sept. 28, according to tampabay.com.

Both parties who purchased tickets from Minton on Craigslist took pictures of his drivers license and noted his license plate during the purchases that were originally set up through a Craigslist ad. “If these are fake, I’m going to find you and you’re going to pay for this,” Chris Vazquez, one of the frauded patrons told Minton at the time of the purchase. Sure enough, when Vazquez arrived at the Luke Bryan concert, just like another concertgoer Marvin Mendez who purchased four tickets from Geoffrey Minton for $400, they were told they were counterfeit.

This prompted Tampa police to set up a sting for the Jason Aldean concert on Oct. 10th at the same Tampa venue. Officers arrested Geoffrey Minton in a CVS parking lot where he set up a meeting with a local ticket broker as part of the sting. He was found with eight counterfeit Jason Aldean concert tickets in his car. Police know of an additional five victims of Geoffrey Minton’s counterfeiting, but think there could be as many as a dozen.

Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean have been country concert counterfeiter’s favorite artists, due partly to the fact that their sold out shows send floods of fans looking for tickets on the secondary market that are willing to pay top dollar.

On Saturday, September 6th, West Springfield, CT police arrested two men for allegedly selling counterfeit tickets to the Luke Bryan concert at Hartford’s Xfinity Theatre. At the time, the concert was sold out. A man sold a family four tickets for nearly $700. Since the tickets were made of card stock, were perforated, and had bar codes, the family wasn’t worried. But with the sophistication of today’s counterfeiter’s, seeing is not always believing.

This summer’s tour with Jason Aldean and Florida Georgia Line also faced counterfeiting issues. On August 29th, a New York City man by the name of Cy Ismeal Rivera was arrested at a mall in Albany, NY for selling fake tickets to the Jason Aldean / Florida Georgia Line concert at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Police contacted the man on Craigslist and offered to purchase six tickets. When they met the man at the local mall and confirmed the tickets were counterfeit, they arrested him on charges of first-degree “scheme to defraud.”

The Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple Sr. later posted on Facebook, “Attention!!! This is a warning to those of you who feel the need to jump on those $10 buses and travel from downstate to the Capital District to try and prey upon us ole’ country folk here in upstate…..our investigators will find you just like we did today when your friend travelled up here to sell my investigators fake tickets for Jason Aldean. Dozens of people have been scammed to date, and we now have the subject responsible!”

On May 28th, three people were arrested in Farmville, North Carolina for selling counterfeit tickets to a Luke Bryan concert in Raleigh on June 7th at the Walnut Creek Ampitheatre. Greenville, NC residents Michael Corrigan, Martin Luna Jr. and Russell Brooks were charged with obtaining property by false pretense and felony conspiracy.

In September of 2013, four people were arrested at a hotel in Green Tree, NY for selling fake Luke Bryan tickets to a concert at the First Niagara Pavilion. According to Green Tree Police Chief Bob Downey, the counterfeiters were selling tickets at a price of $300 for two, and $600 for four. After one group of individuals bought counterfeit tickets from the sellers on Craigslist and realized they’d been duped, they arranged to purchase more ticket and brought police with them. Four men from the Bronx were arrested. “Some of the equipment that we found in their possession was indicative of a counterfeit-making operation,” Police Chief Downey said. A total of 20 people were believed to be scammed in the operation.

Scalping and scamming are symptoms of the high demand for country concert tickets at shows that sometimes sell out within a matter of minutes. Eric Church has been actively taking on scalpers during his current concert tour, warning them “Don’t even mess with us.” Meanwhile the desire to keep ticket prices down and make sure everyone gets a seat is the strategy behind Garth Brooks’ current world tour where he’s played as many as eight concerts in the same location, including multiple concerts on the same day. The idea is simply to to flood the market with tickets so scalpers and scammers have limited demand. Because of this, the price for Garth tickets on the secondary market has been staying closer to face value for many of the concert stops.

In March, Ticketmaster posted a notice to fans of how to spot counterfeit tickets. “With many high-demand shows throughout the summer, it’s important for us to remind you about counterfeit tickets,” the ticket selling giant said. “We have heard heartbreaking and devastating stories from fans that didn’t make it into a big show and were turned away at the door with counterfeit tickets. We don’t want this to happen to you!”

© 2023 Saving Country Music