Raye hits back at ticket touts who took over Albert Hall sign-up

Raye has hit back at ticket touts who she says "overwhelmed" the sign-up process for an upcoming live show by using artificial intelligence (AI) bots to create "hundreds of thousands of fake registrations".

The Where Is My Husband! singer revealed there were 1.8 million sign-ups for her one-off 5,000-seat performance at the Royal Albert Hall on 23 October.

To avoid a pre-sale which she felt scalpers could exploit, Raye said the sign-up list had been manually reviewed to identify a shortlist of people believed to be "real fans".

A spokesperson for the Royal Albert Hall said they "invest heavily" in protecting their ticketing systems from "automated attacks" but the "law needs to catch up".

The award-winning artist said she had "never witnessed bots on this scale" and was changing the process as it is "so important" to her that fans can buy tickets at the face value price.

"I'm not sure what the future holds for ticketing, I do know this experience has really opened my eyes," she said in a statement shared on her social media accounts .

"Me and my team are going to think really hard about what we can do in the future."

Raye said the fans manually selected would receive a pre-sale link and code by email at 11:45 BST on Tuesday, and pre-sale opened shortly afterwards.

She added that the remaining tickets would be available to all on general sale.

This Symphony May Contain Hope show will showcase songs from her recent chart-topping second album, This Music May Contain Hope, that fuses old-school jazz with orchestral sound, blues, big band and soul.

The 17-track record is a concept album which explores overcoming heartbreak, self-doubt and internet trolling.

Raye has enjoyed an impressive past few years since leaving her label after expressing frustration that they were holding out on releasing her debut album.

She was later released from her contract and struck out as an independent artist.

By the end of 2022, her dance track Escapism featuring US rapper 070 Shake had gone viral on TikTok and shot up the charts to number one.

She finally released her emotionally-charged debut album, My 21st Century Blues, in 2023, which was applauded by critics and peaked at number two in the charts.

It went to on to win a record-breaking six Brit Awards , including album of the year, and was nominated for the acclaimed Mercury Prize.

This summer, Raye was among the six British and Irish artists who headlined Reading and Leeds Festival.

In November, dozens of musicians including Dua Lipa, Coldplay and Sam Fender called on the government to protect fans from online ticket touts in an open letter.

The government then announced plans to ban the resale of tickets for live events above face value.

A draft Ticket Tout Bill was put forward in May, but music industry and consumer groups voiced their frustration that more progress wasn't being made.

It will now go through further consultation and scrutiny, before it can become a new law.

Following Raye's statement, a spokesperson for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it remained "fully committed to stamping out ticket touting for good".

The Royal Albert Hall spokesperson said they "strongly support" the government's plan to improve ticketing laws.

"Artists and venues are doing everything they can to protect fans, but we cannot solve this problem alone," they added.

"The law needs to catch up with the scale and sophistication of the ticket touting industry."

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