Raye Manually Reviews Ticket Sign-Ups After AI Bots Flood Show Applications

Singer Raye is implementing a manual review process for the sign-up list for her upcoming "This Symphony May Contain Hope" show at London's Royal Albert Hall after the application process was overwhelmed by an estimated 1.8 million sign-ups for just 5,000 available seats.

Raye stated on X that the high demand was significantly impacted by artificial intelligence bots, which created hundreds of thousands of fake registrations. "It is a new world we are living in now, I have never witnessed bots on this scale," she wrote. "It is so important to me that fans can buy tickets at the face value price."

To address the issue and prevent scalpers from exploiting the system, Raye and her team have decided to manually vet the sign-up list. "Therefore rather than risk opening a presale that scalpers could exploit, we felt the best and safest solution for this specific show was to manually review the sign-up list to identify a shortlist of people we believe are real fans," she explained.

Those selected will receive their presale link and code via email on Tuesday at 11:45 a.m. BST, with the sale commencing at midday. Individuals who do not receive a presale code will have the opportunity to purchase remaining tickets during the general sale.

Raye acknowledged that this experience has opened her eyes to the challenges of ticketing in the current landscape. "I'm not sure what the future holds for ticketing, I do know this experience has really opened my eyes," she stated. "Me and my team are going to think really hard about what we can do in the future."

The demand for the show, which features Raye reimagining her sophomore album "This Music May Contain Hope" with the Heritage Orchestra and Flames Collective, highlights the singer's growing popularity following the success of her 2023 album "My 21st Century Blues."