Eric Church on Fighting Scalpers: ‘There’s Only So Much You Can Do’

Eric Church has not hidden his distaste for ticket scalpers, but even he admits that his hands are largely tied when it comes to their unyielding power.

“The way they succeed is just unfair. There’s only so much you can do," Church says (quote via Radio.com).

"We put these parameters in place," he adds. "We do everything we can to make it hard on them. If it was an even playing field I wouldn’t be as passionate as I am. But it’s not. They have companies. They’ve got 100 of these bots that are always probing.”

Church recently took back almost 1000 tickets that scalpers had purchased for a show in Minneapolis on his Outsiders World Tour, and re-sold them to his fans.

“A lot of acts just want to sell as many tickets as they can and they don’t care who they sell them to,” he explains. “I want my fans to be the ones who buy tickets to my shows, and I want scalpers to back off. I can’t stop ticket scalpers completely, but I can definitely make it harder for them.”

The 'Give Me Back My Hometown' singer acknowledges he wishes others would do more to stop the scalpers as well.

“It’s one of the flaws right now with the music industry," he adds. "There are a number of them, but that’s one that we should fix.”

Church's Outsiders World Tour kicks off on Sept. 11 in Bossier City, La., with Dwight Yoakam serving as his special guest on all dates, and Brandy Clark, Brothers Osborne and rock band Halestorm rotating as his opening act. See a list of all of his upcoming shows here.