Beyoncé Fans Are Going to Extreme Lengths to Secure Renaissance Tour Tickets

Beyoncé works hard, but the BeyHive might just be working harder right now. The rush for tickets to Beyoncé’s global Renaissance Tour from her seventh studio album started Feb. 2. And fans are proving they will go to extreme lengths—from spending exuberant amounts of money to snagging tickets in countries halfway across the world—to see the Queen.

Many fans are concerned that Beyoncé’s tour would face similar issues to last fall when Ticketmaster’s inability to handle the huge demand for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour resulted in fans having problems accessing the ticket sale platform, prompting them to look at resale tickets for outrageous prices (up to $8,000.) So far, tickets have been hard to snag to the Renaissance Tour, but it seems to be a result of the sheer demand of eager Beyoncé fans against the limited number of seats available, rather than Ticketmaster being unable to handle the surge. Even before pre-sale tickets became available, Ticketmaster said it was anticipating an 800% more demand than tickets available in Group A cities—like New York, Chicago, Houston, and Washington D.C.—alone.

There have been complaints surfacing the internet on Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing, a system that was first announced in 2011 but started making headlines during the rush for big-name tours last year. It fluctuates prices in real-time according to demand. Ticketmaster says it’s an effort to help real fans buy tickets and keep them off the resale market.

Fans trying to secure Beyoncé tickets are finding that tickets are tripling in price in mere minutes on the ticketing site. Many tickets aren’t cheap—for her Atlanta, Georgia show this summer, VIP tickets are going for as high as $3,500 plus fees. For her hometown Houston show, nosebleeds can still cost you over $150. Ticket seller Vivid Seats estimated that the average price for a ticket to Beyoncé’s last tour in 2016, the Formation Tour, was about $207.

High prices aren’t necessarily discouraging fans. A content creator who goes by “Adrian Xpression” started and promoted a new OnlyFans page on his YouTube page to raise funds. On GoFundMe, there are over 500 pages attempting to fundraise for the event. Organizer Jamaal Anderson crowdsourced funding for Renaissance tickets by explaining, “This is the only life experience I care about living before I die.” He’s raised nearly $500.

Anderson seems likely to join the elite group of Beyoncé fans who can brag “I got Beyoncé tickets” on their social media feed, sparking FOMO from peers who weren’t as lucky.

But the BeyHive aren’t gate-keepers. They’re sharing with one another how they were able to secure their tickets. One tip: use as many devices as possible and log onto Ticketmaster’s queue early. The Beyoncé reddit page, with more than 270,000 members, has fans asking one another for advice on which cities, sections and pre-sales are successful choices each time the next group of tickets are released. There are even videos that breakdown sections of the tour’s stadiums and advice on which areas to purchase from to get as much close contact with the singer during the show. (The “Club Renaissance” floor portion of the stadium seems to be the most coveted by the internet).

The North America leg’s pre-sale registration—which uses a lottery system to provide Verified Fans with access codes to buy tickets—is now closed. The system was not without flaws, as many fans were quick to share they didn’t receive access codes, or if they did, the codes didn’t work.

So far, Group A tour dates have concluded the sales of their staggered presale options: the BeyHive presale, the CitiBank presale and the Verizon presale. For most of these presales, fans needed access to accounts with CitiBank or Verizon to participate, which resulted in those who don’t have access to call on their friends and family members who did to help get them access.

Groups B and C, venues in smaller cities, still can still look forward to their three pre-sales in the coming weeks. For the rest of Tickermaster’s Verified Fans looking for Group A tickets., a general sale starts on Feb. 11.

But for Beyoncé’s most dedicated fans, a trip abroad is proving a better option than standing out from the crowd back home. Some Beyoncé fans in Europe have taken to social media to say they’re not having as hard of a time securing tickets, and that their prices may be cheaper too. American fans have caught on and are beginning to buy Renaissance tickets for her European dates.

One fan tweeted she’d be booking a trip to Stockholm after discovering flights and tickets to Beyoncé’s Stockholm show would be cheaper than a single “Club Renaissance” ticket in D.C. is. A viral tweet with over 45,000 likes quips, “Beyoncé got folks that ain’t ever left their home state before buying Renaissance tickets in Barcelona.” A fan responded to the post explaining, “I’m from Brazil, [I] have never left my hometown before, I got tickets for Frankfurt. I just got my passport yesterday. Beyonce [is] making me actually get up and go out there.” Another fan tweeted that she’s contemplating making the trek to Europe, “Am I insane for buying Beyoncé tickets in Poland? I’ve never been to Poland.”

Not all Beyoncé fans will get to see the Renaissance tour, but in the midst of the frenzy, they can lean on the certainties: the singer has secured her spot as the most awarded artist at the Grammys, she’s released her “CUFF IT” song remix, and is about to drop new clothing from her Ivy Park-Adidas fashion line (despite reported lackluster sales). There’s even buzz that she may be dropping her highly anticipated accompanying visuals from her album any day now.