A Texas couple says their $2,300 SeatGeek tickets to Metallica at the Sphere scanned as already used, leaving them outside the show

A Texas man says he and his wife spent $2,300 on SeatGeek tickets to see Metallica at the Sphere in Las Vegas, only to be turned away when the tickets scanned as already used. The couple ended up sitting in the venue’s parking lot while the show went on without them, according to The Nerd Stash.

TikTok user CT (@rms_industries) shared the moment in a video that has pulled in over a million views. He says he bought floor tickets through SeatGeek back in March and made the drive from Austin, Texas, for the concert. When staff scanned the tickets at the entrance, the couple was reportedly told the tickets had “already been entered.”

CT claims SeatGeek’s customer service did little beyond telling him to send an email and to “have a wonderful day.” “Everybody’s in there and we’re not. $2,300. Supposed to be on the ground level. I was so excited,” he says in the clip. The caption on the video puts the total closer to $2,400, and he ends by warning viewers not to use the platform.

Viewers say they’re steering clear of SeatGeek after watching the couple sit outside

In a follow-up video, CT shared a screen recording that he says shows the tickets being scanned in real time. He claims nobody else had access to his personal information. According to the Texas man, staff were able to scan the moving barcodes, yet the system kept flagging the tickets as used, even though they came straight from SeatGeek.

The most popular comments on the original clip focused less on the scanner and more on the couple. One viewer said CT was “still winning,” crediting his wife for staying calm instead of turning the night into a scene. Another thanked him for speaking up, adding that “now we all know not to use Seat Geek,” a sentiment repeated across much of the thread.

Others zeroed in on the price itself, as the figure stunned plenty of viewers. “$2300 is the real scam,” one person wrote, while another called that amount criminal for any concert, no matter the artist. A few viewers also claimed they had seen a second video that same day from Metallica fans who ran into a similar SeatGeek problem, though those posts were not independently confirmed.

A different group used the moment to argue against resale platforms altogether. One commenter said a simple refund would not be enough and called for resellers to be banned outright. However, not everyone blamed the format, as one viewer insisted Ticketmaster is the only place still selling legitimate tickets. Some simply hoped Metallica’s crew would see the clip and offer the couple front row seats.

The band is in the middle of its Life Burns Faster residency at the Sphere, with shows running on select weekends this fall. Seats for the run have fetched steep prices on resale sites, as several commenters pointed out while reacting to the couple’s total. Disputes over digital tickets are hardly new, however. A buyer’s Bruno Mars StubHub tickets were canceled as fraudulent by Ticketmaster in a similar fight over who was responsible for a bad ticket.

CT says he still hopes to see Metallica in the future. SeatGeek does not appear to have publicly addressed the videos, and it remains unclear whether the couple will receive a refund for the tickets.

Attack of the Fanboy was unable to independently verify SeatGeek’s side of the story, as this account originates solely from CT’s TikTok video.