One creative Taylor Swift fan found a golden ticket to finance his education—selling his prized seat to one of her Eras Tour shows for a whopping $14,000.
TikTok user @issacjarman2 explained in a viral video that he made the difficult choice to part with his concert ticket because it would cover his entire college tuition.
“I paid off my college with this Taylor Swift ticket because I had a ticket to her Eras Tour,” he shared. “It was in the 100 section, it was fourth row.”
Such premium seats just rows from the stage are highly coveted and rare, usually saved for VIPs. Jarman said his ticket’s front-and-center proximity made it valuable enough to fund his academic dreams.
“I ended up listing it on StubHub for $14,000 as a complete joke, expecting nothing to come of it,” he admitted. But within 12 hours, he had a buyer willing to meet his bold asking price.
“Someone actually paid the $14,000, so I’m taking that and paying off my college with it,” the shocked TikToker announced.
Jarman’s video explaining how he flipped one Taylor Swift ticket into a tuition payday quickly went viral. It amassed over 4 million views and 5,000 shares from impressed fans.
Many praised his entrepreneurial spirit and saw the astronomical sale as a smart financial move.
“You’re real for this and I’m not afraid to say it,” one user commented. “Honestly. Entrepreneur. Congrats on getting your tuition paid,” another agreed.
But some were critical of the inflated pricing that allowed such exorbitant profit, arguing it was unfair to loyal Swifties on a budget.
“Both are the problem. If people are willing to buy them then it’s fine. It sucks for people like me who can’t afford them and can’t get a code,” one fan weighed in.
Jarman’s $14,000 sale highlights the white-hot demand for Swift’s tour, which kicked off in March 2022 and continues through summer 2023.
On resale sites, floor seats are going for many multiples above face value. The average resale price for U.S. shows is $695, according to TickPick. But premium seats easily eclipse $1,000.
Capitalizing on that demand, Jarman more than doubled the typical resale rate for his prime seats.
Some blame Swift’s complicated ticketing process, plagued by long queues and Ticketmaster meltdowns, for driving desperate fans to pay inflated secondary market prices.
Critics argue this rewards scalpers profiting off Swift mania and squeezes out budget-conscious devotees.
Yet for Jarman himself, the windfall allowed him to achieve his college dreams debt-free. He called it “pretty nice” consolation for missing the concert.
What’s more, he later revealed he got to attend a different Swift show months after selling the ticket, just seated further back.
So in the end, Jarman saw Swift live and earned enough from one night’s seats to fund his future. He offers an example of how some superfans are creatively financing their passions.
“I feel like if you had tickets and somebody offered you a stack of $14,000 to not go…like you wouldn’t go, that’s so many hours of work equivalent to that,” Jarman reasoned.
His own equivalent of over 2,000 hourly wages at minimum wage bought the rising TikTok star his long-awaited degree.
