The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), which will be organized in mid-May in Basel, is generating immense enthusiasm among the public. Some fraudsters try to take advantage of this by purchasing tickets en masse.
During pre-registration for ticket purchases, hundreds of thousands of “fake accounts” were used, i.e. accounts that cannot be attributed to any “real” person, the marketing manager explained of the competition, Thomas Pittino, on German-speaking radio and television SRF.
In total, half a million registrations have been recorded, but only 50,000 to 60,000 places are available for the public of the nine planned shows. According to Thomas Pittino, “we must start from the idea that between a third and half of registrations are what we call ‘bots,’ that is to say fake accounts.” These will now be filtered.
Tickets between 40 and 350 francs
Registration ends this Friday at midnight. Successfully registered people will be able to purchase the first tickets on January 29 from 10:00 a.m. They cost between 40 and 350 francs.
Switzerland is hosting the competition this year, following the victory of the Bienne artist Nemo in Malmö (Sweden) last year. The final will take place on May 17 at the Halle St-Jacques in Basel.
>> Watch Nemo’s performance again:
ats/lan
