Eric Church is a longtime opponent of ticket scalpers, and he's taken a very unusual step to fight them in Minnesota.

Church's upcoming date at the Target Center in Minneapolis has sold over 14,000 tickets since it went on sale last Friday (April 18), making it one of the fastest-selling shows of the upcoming Outsiders World Tour. Only a handful of seats remain, located behind the stage in what is unofficially known as the Choir Loft. But that's about to change.

In a press release Friday (April 25), Church announced that 902 seats for his Minneapolis show will go back on sale Friday afternoon at 5PM CDT.

Church made the decision to cancel the original ticket purchases and put the seats back into the system after they were identified as having been purchased by scalpers in violation of the sales limits of the show. The best seats for the upcoming shows are being sold paperless to ensure that fans get them, instead of scalpers.

“A lot of acts just want to sell as many tickets as they can and they don't care who they sell them to,” Church says. “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.”

To that end, all ticket orders for the Outsiders World Tour are being scrutinized to combat scalping as much as possible, to ensure that fans will have the best opportunity to see the concerts for the originally intended price.

The arena tour is slated to kick off Sept. 11 in Bossier City, La. and run through 31 dates before wrapping up in Birmingham, Ala. on Dec. 13.

Dwight Yoakam will be featured as the special guest for the entire tour, with a rotating roster of Brothers Osborne, Brandy Clark and hard rock band Halestorm serving as opening acts on various dates.

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