StubHub may not be showing you all available tickets

Susan Burke was elated when Beyoncé announced she would play a concert near Washington, D.C., in July.

“StubHub says that it’s easy to relist tickets, so I’ll just do that,” Burke says. “It’ll be no issue!”

The filter dramatically cuts the number of listings that are initially shown to buyers, preventing them from seeing all the available tickets for an event. It is on by default, but tucked away under a “Filters” section at the top, making it easy to miss for many users.

So anyone trying to buy tickets to Beyoncé’s July 4th concert in Maryland’s Northwest Stadium — the same ones that Burke was trying to sell — can only see fewer than 400 seats available on StubHub as of late Tuesday. Getting off the filter, however, shows over 1,000 available tickets.

StubHub blames “algorithms” when sellers ask why

But they question whether buyers are also made aware that they need to toggle off the feature to see all the results.

Meanwhile, Burke says she was told that all she had to do was lower the price to get her ticket to show up — a step she was reluctant to take.

StubHub calls the filter the ‘best experience’ for fans

Despite labeling the “Recommended Tickets” as a “Popular Feature” in its website, StubHub does not advertise the feature prominently.

The feature stumped even a retired professional ticket broker in Texas who has relied on platforms such as StubHub during his career. He declined to be identified by name because he wants to preserve his ties to the business since he still occasionally sells and buys tickets.

He once tried to sell tickets to a “Hamilton” production, but like Burke, he couldn’t find the tickets he was trying to sell on StubHub — and that’s how he too discovered the filter for the first time.

He’s struggling to understand why StubHub favors some tickets over others.

“I know how to price tickets because I’ve done it for so long,” he says. “I had these tickets that were gorgeous tickets, gorgeous seats, and I priced them very reasonably. But StubHub buried my seats.”

“It makes no business sense to me,” he adds. “Those are tickets they can’t sell because no one knows to look for them.”

One seller sold tickets cheaper than he would have liked

Jamie Dawson McDowell, who works at a children’s museum in Indiana and does voice-over work, is a frequent buyer and seller on StubHub.

He says he discovered the filter when he noticed that some of his tickets were not showing up a few years ago.

Dawson McDowell still can’t figure out why the filter prefers some tickets over others, but he now finds himself having to more frequently monitor his listings, and there are times he says he’s had to sell tickets very cheaply just to get them to show up.

He finds it upsetting.

“It’s just supposed to be a marketplace for you to sell your tickets,” he says. “It does make you wonder what the motivation is, and I’m not certain what that would be, because if you’re StubHub, I would think selling a ticket is selling a ticket.”

Ticket sites have been under the microscope lately

Ticket marketplaces such as Ticketmaster and StubHub have previously sparked popular outrage, as well as lawsuits. Ticketmaster, for example, came under intense pressure over a botched sales process for Taylor Swift tickets over a couple of years ago, although the company has strongly defended itself.

StubHub, which focuses on ticket resales, has not been immune.

Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued the ticket provider last year, accusing it of “deceptive pricing” by advertising a low price at first and then tacking on a myriad of fees that makes the final price “vastly higher” during the checkout process.

Along the way, the lawsuit states that StubHub uses tactics like using a countdown clock that “creates a false sense of urgency” for users to buy tickets or risk losing them.

Schwalb and his team also argue that StubHub intentionally makes it harder to find the toggle that allows users to see the final price up front. StubHub has strongly denied the accusations and said it would defend itself against the lawsuit.

Not all buyers may be aware of the filter

He’s had to help friends who don’t realize it is automatically turned on and that they are not seeing all the available tickets.

“if you’re not an avid user of StubHub, it’s frustrating,” he says. “It just feels deceitful in a way.”

For sellers, it’s especially frustrating. Like Susan Burke from Washington D.C., who still hasn’t sold her tickets. She’s just hoping to get back the approximately $1,000 that she paid — but is preparing herself to take a loss if she needs to.

But first, she’d like to give her tickets a chance to sell by having them actually show up when potential buyers search for them. Because they are there. They’re just not easy to find.