Avengers: Endgame tickets resell for SG$888 on Carousell as cinema websites crash

Carousell has made headlines lately for reselling limited merchandises and tickets, and this time it is for Marvel's latest Avengers: Endgame movie. Just last week after ticket sales commenced, consumers were found reselling tickets on Carousell for above SG$100 per ticket. A quick check by Marketing found that some of the tickets cost as much as SG$888 for a pair. The original price of the ticket begins at SG$9.50. While Carousell's spokesperson did not address Marketing's queries on the actions it will take to counter this, the spokesperson said that as a classifieds marketplace, its mission is to inspire everyone in the world to buy and sell and create more possibilities for each other. "We discourage opportunistic price setting, and are currently working on co-creating a set of guidelines and community best practices to promote a better and more inclusive classifieds experience," the spokesperson added. She also said that the eCommerce platform allows the buying and selling of tickets as long as the transactions do not violate any laws or terms of service. As with every online and offline marketplace, there are always risks to buying and selling. As such, the spokesperson said Carousell urges users to be cautious and practice due diligence when arranging any deals. The film has of course set local fans a frenzy. According to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), cinema sites had crashed on 10 April leaving fans to wait in queue to book tickets both online and at the cinema counters. Fans were quick to scour the cinema sites such as Golden Village, Cathay Cineplexes, WE Cinemas and Shaw to grab tickets to the first day show. In the CNA article, a Golden Village spokesperson said the website met with "high traffic" and tickets to the film were snapped up in a matter of hours. A Cathay Cineplexes spokesperson also said the website was inactive for a short while due to the "overwhelming" traffic but the team was working to fix it. Cathay Cineplexes’ strategy to update and respond to patrons about the situation on social media involved the use of Avengers-related memes and light-hearted posts. Marketing has reached out to Golden Village and Cathay Cineplexes for comment. A report by Digimind said conversations relating to ticket sales for Avengers: Endgame in Singapore spiked on 10 April with 1,450 mentions, when the advances sales opened. Customers lamented about the cinema websites not loading properly, faulty transactions, and having to wait in a virtual queue for hours without any luck of getting a ticket. However, these mentions tapered off within the next day. A day after the ticket sales, majority of discussions revolved around the absurdity of the ticket prices re-sellers were demanding. Opinions on ticket scalpers were divided with some people expressing disdain at scalpers taking advantage of the situation, and others laughing at its preposterousness of the situation. Meanwhile, statistics by Meltwater said the overall sentiment was positive, despite the negative conversations on social media pages and blogs/forums. According to the Emoji leaderboard, the "Skull" emoji were actually attributed to both long wait list for ticket purchase and exorbitant ticket resale price by scalpers. In addition, the key themes found in the analysis were "avengers endgame", "marvel", "imax", "carousell", "shaw" among many others. Read also: Changi Airport and Carousell investigate resale of Jewel tickets McDonald’s says it ‘doesn’t encourage’ resale of My Melody holders on Carousell