HOUSTON – Adele fans in Houston said they must have clicked a thousand times -- and nothing Thursday. Within minutes, all the tickets for both of Adele’s 2016 Houston concerts sold out.
"I originally wanted three tickets and hit submit," Suzanne Armour said. "Then the message came up that that number was not available. So, try again,”
Armour said she was hoping to buy tickets for her Adele-loving daughter for Christmas.
"I understand there were thousands and thousands of people trying to get tickets," Armour said. "I understand that process."
But Armour said "Hello" when she saw prices the ticket broker were selling Adele tickets for just minutes after the Toyota Center concerts were sold out.
"My problem is, you've got the general public very diligently trying to follow directions and get tickets which were on the Toyota Center website were anywhere from $39 to $150," Armour said. "So I'm looking at these broker sites and the tickets that were anywhere from $39 to $150, the cheapest I found were $350."
The owner of Houston Ticket Brokers said there is no conspiracy. He said brokers do what they can to get their hands on tickets. However, the ticket inventory, generally available to brokers, is only about one percent of a venue’s capacity.
"I understand how they can ask for that much," Armour said. "I don't understand that there are really people that would pay $9,000 for a ticket. And maybe there are."
A spokesperson for Toyota Center told KPRC 2 that they did everything they could to make sure that the tickets ended up in the hands of the fans. She said that included using special software to make sure the tickets were sold to actual people, not automated computers.