If you tried buying tickets to Eurovision 2024 this morning, then you probably don’t need us to translate the following Swedish phrase: biljettkaos.
“Ticket chaos” is how Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet titled its article about the Eurovision 2024 ticket sale, which started on Tuesday morning.
Tickets were released at 10:00 am local time and, as ever, interest was huge. More than 400,000 people queued on ticketmsater.se.
The web site issued a clear and understandable warning:
“Tickets for the grand final sell quickly and availability is low. Please check back later as many tickets may become available again or try to purchase a ticket for other shows.”
? So who among you has scored #Eurovision tickets? pic.twitter.com/p8JFhYtwtM
— wiwibloggs (@wiwibloggs) November 28, 2023
A quick scroll through Twitter reveals plenty of angry feeds and broken hearts, even if a further batch of tickets will be released later.
Some fans speculated that bots were snapping up all the seats, while others flagged how tickets were already being resold for exorbitant prices on other web sites.
I joined the queue for the Live Grand Final (why not have a go lol) 280000+
— Aaron (@Aaron_F320) November 28, 2023
Also joined the queue for the SF2 Evening Preview and 120000+ That many people looking for an evening preview ticket?! ?
The population of the Eurovision ticket queue is larger than the actual population of Malmö, Sweden pic.twitter.com/uUVCDkO4JH
— andrew (@and_rew_thom) November 28, 2023
Getting through the queue twice but not being able to get a ticket for any of the Eurovision shows ? pic.twitter.com/XqUehfHUoC
— Heidi M. Pedersen | (@heidi_majgaard) November 28, 2023
But it’s not all bad news. Wiwiblogger Lucy persevered and managed to grab tickets more than three hours after the ticket sale started.
I can’t believe I’m going to my first live shows ?
— Percy // ???? (@JeMappellePercy) November 28, 2023
We got live semis and jury final, I’m absolutely ecstatic but oh so very tired!
The shows
First Semi-Final:
- Evening Preview: Monday 6 May (Jury Show)
- Afternoon Preview: Tuesday 7 May (Family Show)
- Live TV Show: Tuesday 7 May
Second Semi-Final:
- Evening Preview: Wednesday 8 May (Jury Show)
- Afternoon Preview: Thursday 9 May (Family Show)
- Live TV Show: Thursday 9 May
Grand Final:
- Evening Preview: Friday 10 May (Jury Show)
- Afternoon Preview: Saturday 11 May (Family Show)
- Live TV Show: Saturday 11 May
Ticket prices
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First & Second Semi-Final – Evening Preview: 145-795 SEK (~€13-70)
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First & Second Semi-Final – Afternoon Preview: 145-545 SEK (~€13-48)
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First & Second Semi-Final – Live Show: 525-2395 SEK (~€46-210)
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Grand Final – Evening Preview: 525-2395 SEK (~€46-210)
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Grand Final – Afternoon Preview: 145-1385 SEK (~€13-121)
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Grand Final – Live Show: 860-3795 SEK (~€75-332)
In addition to regular tickets, there will be a selection of VIP packages as well.
How did you fare? Did you get tickets? And how long did you have to wait? Let us know down below!
I’ve given up on trying to get Eurovision tickets. It’s become far too popular… almost a rite of passage for some. I last went to a final in Helsinki in 2007. Back then there was an allocation of 90% locals, 10% foreigners. And you had to book by phone. It was a fun night surrounded mostly by Finns. Now the experience has changed. Queuing up in a virtual queue that you may or may not be randomly kicked out of just isn’t a fun initial experience. Perhaps a ballot is needed. Everyone who is serious about going joins the ballot… Read more »
I got all three jury shows. Unsure how I got that lucky but I’m so happy!
I have no idea why people pay exorbitant amounts of money to attend something that is not a concert but a made-for-TV event…
Well, try it once and you’ll understand 🙂
To experience a once in a life time thing I have never experienced before.
I’m the same – don’t see myself going to a show that’s made for TV viewers. The camera people obstructing the view would really annoy me. (I also get panic attacks when there are too many people so it’s never gonna happen).
But the show wouldn’t be the same without the live audience, and I’m sure they get an experience we can’t get sitting in the comfort of our home. So it’s nice there there’s a version for whatever kind of ESC fan you are. =)
I joined the queue at 92,000. I kept checking but then forgot. I wasn’t expecting to get a ticket. I put my tablet screen on after getting back from a shop a few hours later and it flashed up that I could now book a ticket! Got family show on Thursday. Was not expecting that. Managed to book room at airport hotel at reasonable price and booked cheap flights from UK. Early start Thursday but time to enjoy the live show in Malmo or Copenhagen before flying back Friday.
Moral of the story: watch ESC at home.
* Less stress.
* Cheaper.
* Less people.
* You don’t have to travel a thousand miles away from the known dimensions of your house to go to an unfamiliar location.
Plus, you don’t have to spend hours in some queue – only to come up empty-handed because people who’ve been to the contest 40 times before bought ’em all.
The last one is hardly a benefit for me, quite the opposite. Eurovision is a great reason to go on a trip to a new place (ok, not this year since I’ve been to Malmö dozens of times) and the atmosphere in the host city is usually absolutely awesome.
Generally I find going to Eurovision absolutely worth it, though I recommend going to semis and then watch the final at home. That way you get to see all the performances live (not just those that qualified), and it’s usually much easier to obtain tickets.
We woke up at 4 AM here in the US, and by the time we switched the language on Ticketmaster to English (extra 2-3 min), we were already way down in the queue, then, multiple failed transactions (our bank thought we were being hacked) we realized we were never going to get tickets. We ended up paying $3,000 USD (plus $1500 in fees) for the live finals on StubHub? At least know we have amazing seats, and we can plan our Scandinavian trip! May have been a tad impulsive, but I’ve been waiting my whole life – I was not… Read more »
that was a very bad idea. there will be a second or third wave of ticket sales and also resale from those who changed their mind. 4500 USD ?! You gotta be kidding me, it’s a robbery on a broad daylight
Just an observation….. it was irrelevant which one of the 9 shows you selected, you just joined one big queue. Hence the 400000 at one stage. Why not enable queuing for each individual show? THEN, when I did get through the queue I could purchase all the tickets for all the 9 shows… I wasn’t greedy and opted for tickets to both Semi’s, but it did feel unfair that I could have bought tickets for all 9 shows, potentially denying others in the same queue.
I failed to get any ticket and I tried for many hours. Even people I know tried to get tickets for me and themselves but they didn’t get anything either It took several hours before I could choose tickets, but every time I chose different seats it said that I could not get them. Did I do wrong? (and people I knew who tried to get tickets for me and themselves.)Would you wait for new tickets to automatically come up on the screen again when you made your choice and it said you could not get these tickets after the… Read more »
The question is how to get rid of the tickets if you have to (a date that I can’t attend that was bought in all the chaos). I don’t see a way to cancel them on the website. Anybody has experience with ticketmaster?
You can re sell them through Ticketmaster but you have to wait until a month or so before the event
Oh so that’s how it works, thanks
Not true, TicketMaster will open the resale market for these tickets on Dec. 12.
Hi Ana, how many tickets and for which show do you have? I am still looking for tickets, maybe we can find a solution.
I have one ticket for the Evening Rehearsal of the 1st Semi and one of the day rehearsal of the first semi. Both of those I can’t attend.
I was no. 181 719 in the queue, but still managed to get a ticket to Semi 1 afternoon show in the end. So I´m happy – and will continue trying to get one for the final as well.
No need to give up just yet 🙂
My Wife and I managed to get tickets for the live grand final and for both the semi finals. I got the grand final tickets first after being placed 36k in the queue (using phone). I got through to the selection options and everything seemed sold out. But I kept trying different options and finally got two “restricted view” tickets in block A15. This was about 2hr 30 after sales started. My wife then got through at 15:20 for the live semi finals and literally walked in and added them to her basket, despite me being in the room trying… Read more »
I managed to get tickets for both semis with relative ease. They were unavailable when I got through the queue but some appeared within three minutes. So I’m quite happy. I will get to see all performances live, and enjoy the final on TV. Imho much better than the other way around. L
So new tickets came up automatically without you pressing anything on the page again?
When I didn’t get any tickets I pressed the button there asked the computer to search for the tickets again and also selected seats in the option where you had to choose exactly which seats you wanted in the arena?
What exactly did you do?
When did you join the waiting room before the tickets went on sale?
Did you use the computer or mobile phone?
Did you use the app or chrome for example?
I joined the waiting room around 9:45 and got 50k people ahead of me when the queue opened. I used automatic seat selection, so I only entered the number of people, pressed search (or whatever was that button called), got reply that no tickets are available, repeated the process a few times and finally got two seats which I then paid for.
How long did it take you to get to the front of the queue?
It was just before 13:00, so three hours approximately.
No! I have a new phone and I’ve been off grid for two days and haven’t been able to use my bank. Why does everything bad in life happen to me?
Gaza. Ukraine. Somalia. Yemen. Perspective.
By the way, fans should relax. There will be plenty of resales available until May like it happened this year and last year. People cancel plans. So make sure you keep refreshing that page from the new year onwards (i doubt people will cancel in December).
I got tickets from the OGAE but i was curious and managed to get tickets for the semifinal live show (didn’t buy it eventually), so expensive though for section A (318 pounds i think).
Why can;t they put seats in the floor area? It would help haha
I have been to this process for the contest in Turin and it is very sad to have people that have not been to the contest not going again after trying and trying multiple times. On the one hand, I congratulate Sweden for the early booking, since now fans will have much time to book hotel rooms, plan their calendar… because all the previous years we planned our trip without even knowing if we can watch the contest from the arena or we planed it after booking the ESC tickets, resulting in paying more many for airplane tickets, hotels since… Read more »
I got the grand final live show! My first show ever! I have a wheelchair spot, so this may be different, but still. Doesn’t feel real.
Can’t wait to experience that feeling of buying the ESC ticket for the first time ever
Make it an official lottery. The technical queueing solution does again not really work and spreads disappointment.
My guess is it is meant to prevent the sight crashing with too many buying at once, but I don’t know.
How does it “not work”? It worked without any issues for me.
Me too
Having previously worked for a certain unnamed ticketing company, I can tell you that 80+% of the tickets were probably reserved for VIPs, celebs, industry types, people they want to suck up to, etc. The rest will be released occasionally like crumbs thrown to starving pigeons. This the fault of the event organisers and consultants, who decide how many tickets to allocate, when to sell them, and to whom. The ticketing company is really only to blame for any website/phone issues, and of course additional handling fees. I do hope that Eurovision is better than that, but honestly, that’s how… Read more »
For the 4th year in a row, no. Maybe I’ll get lucky one day.
Queue was 3009 and I got in in ten minutes and either none or when selected gettign the error likeeveryone else s#$t show!
After 4 hours of patience, I’ve got 4 tickets for the “jury shows” : 2 for the 1st semi final & 2 for the 2nd semi final.
I was so stressed out, when I saw that there were 103000 people before me.
So it will be my 3rd Eurovision in a row. I’m so happy tonight.
Having missed out on the OGAE ballot we joined the queue at 8.30am – 173,000 people ahead of me (my wife joined a minute later & had 300,000 ahead of her) I had to step out of a Teams meeting with our Romanian marketing team & the marketing director when I finally got to front of the queue at 1.45pm & got first semi family tickets My wife got the front of the queue at 2.30pm – sold out, she went & got a drink, logged back in & was offered 2 tickets for Jury show 2nd semi Long stressful… Read more »
I didn’t even try to buy them – for a third year in a row I’m throwing my money into Comic Con. But one day – maybe I will.
p.s. finalist for escz announced. 7 in fact – and among them names that were on people’s wishlists in the past.
We doing opposite, after years at Dragoncon we are doing ESC this year instead
After sooooo many issues with the desktop website and thinking I had confirmed a ticket only to be stuck on the purchase processing page for 20 minutes, I FINALLY was able to get a different seat, VIP for the live Semifinal 1 show, albeit in a different seat I was trying to get. Ana is 100% right with the desktop website and I recommend doing mobile. Also, I noticed that the available seats were going away and reappearing randomly after refreshing, either because they were constantly getting preliminarily booked or Ticketmaster continued to have issues, most likely the latter. Regardless,… Read more »
The desktop website was completely useless. Only managed to buy something through the phone. Now I got one ticket for the day show of the first semi that I don’t need
Mobile was as bad.
I’m just saying what eventually worked for me. The desktop didn’t work no matter how many times I tried. It would just give me error messages and won’t let me buy anything. I even tried other events that are not Eurovision and it would still give me errors.
Did OGAE get special treatment again this year?
Folks, if you really want to go, maybe this is reason enough to join.
OGAE had a ballot, I missed out in the ballot. Thankfully I got tickets in the general sale today
Tickets are only given to old members
That’s grossly unfair. People who have already been to 47 contests.
In Denmark, OGAE ticket packages are allocated by means of random draw.
Tickets will always be a problem these days because of ticketmaster and the online ticket websites with their strange queues and ‘first come first serve’ mentality when it actually isn’t like that. I learned it the hard way trying to get tickets to my native country earlier this year.
The best system to me would be to abolish all charges. Get rid of ticketmaster. Hold a lottery, with interested parties applying to SVT or EBU. Half of tickets to go to worldwide fans, the other half to go to locals.
Wimbledon’s ballot system for tickets comes to mind. Similar could be applied at Eurovision. No royal box though!!
Royalty can enter the lottery same as everybody else.
They shouldn’t!! They could give a royal seal of approval and bring the event to the attention of people who otherwise wouldn’t care less <3
The King is 50 years on the throne now, him and Waterloo can mark their golden jubilee together.
It didn’t go to plan. Had my second day at the job and the morning meeting ended 5 minutes before the sale. I managed to open the ticket sale 30 seconds into 10:00 and then I was nr 372. 000 in line xD. Now I know eurovision is very beloved by many but I still have my doubts if there were really that many people already lining up in December.
There will be some with multiple accounts trying to get tickets and bots trying to by tickets for resale so we can only guess how many real buyers might be in front of you if you was 372,000th.
I would guess ticket sharks might have 5 – 10 computers ready, the average would be buyer 2 accounts, which would mean between 50,000-100,000 in front of you?
I was 3010 in the queue and when in no tickets, refreshed the grand final got to and then that error message everyone was getting. It does not seem to matter when you are in the queue
Congratulations! You now have a job AND your precious money as well that you can save for the 2025 contest which will surely be hosted somewhere prettier and more interesting. Think it this way.
I got a VIP ticket for two. (Final Jury Show). Searching for somebody who wants the second seat. DM me on Twitter/X @MartObermeier if interested
I got to experience Eurovision for the first time last year in Liverpool (SF1 live show). I didn’t have the patience to wake up even earlier to join the cue but, miraculously, I managed to get a ticket for this year’s SF2 evening preview show. I thought for sure there would be nothing by the time I booked a spot (just now). Though I guess it helps to not be looking for two seats close together, hehe.
This Brazilian girl is going to Malmö \o/
Almost lost hope after I saw that there were 180K people in front of me, but with enough patience, I managed to get tickets for the Grand Final Evening Preview.
Thousands of people dream to see the contest live and instead hundreds of thousands of bots were in queue and all of the sudden, resellers are selling tickets for 1000 euros. All they want is money, they don’t care for anything else.
They’ll get f
Were there even any standing tickets available?
Honestly I thought it was pretty good, only bad thing was that if you got through the queue once you could buy tickets to all the shows without having to queue again. If you’re unhappy you didn’t get a ticket, blame Stockholm for not having a big enough arena to offer
I think the ability to choose the show is good, you have to have multiple computers if you want to try to get tickets for various shows, so the ability to try and get tickets for the final and if you can’t move on to other shows works best.
Their main concern is not 500 000 fans or so but the 150 million watching in front of TV. As it should be. Malmö Arena is perfect for that case
Ticketmaster is the worst option they could have chosen. After the chaos with Liverpool tickets, I thought they would select a different ticket booking company. I mean some of my friends were marked as bots so they couldn’t even log in, even though they hadn’t spammed or used VPN.
Ticketone for Turin tickets was waay better. Such a shame.
As far as I recall, Malmö Arena is operated by Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster. Therefore, anyone organising events in the arena is contractually obligated to sell tickets exclusively via Ticketmaster.
Had HUGE problems with Ticketmaster earlier this year for Liverpool. We need in person tickets and better websites for each country.
Ticketmaster is an awful platform.
It’s always the same mess with them, no matter the event nor the venue. Happened with Bad Bunny’s concert in Mexico City late last year, happened with Taylor Swift’s concerts in August, and I could go on…