06-03-2025
How to avoid rodeo ticket scams
SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) — Tickets to the San Angelo Rodeo are in high-demand as rodeo season nears, leaving those without their seats secured to navigate a digital sea of potential scammers. The San Angelo Stock Show & Rodeo Association's ticketing coordinator shared advice on how to not fall victim to online ticket scams.
Melissa Clements, the San Angelo Stock Show & Rodeo Association's ticketing and vendor coordinator, stated that thousands of tickets to the 2025 San Angelo's 14 performances — approximately 800 to 1,000 tickets per show — were made available for purchase on March 3. The majority of these tickets were purchased within 45 minutes of sales going live.
To prevent bots from purchasing large amounts of tickets at once, several security measures put in place ahead of time sprung into action. IP addresses, WiFi connections, the number of tickets requested for purchase and more were checked to verify whether a buyer was human.
Scammers still persist on the internet despite these countermeasures, though, often attempting to siphon money and sensitive information from targets in exchange for fraudulent tickets. Clements said one of the most common types of scams found online are social media bots designed to comment on posts, claiming to be selling tickets that they no longer need.
'On some things, you can't even post without at least 10 of those popping up on your comments sections,' Clements said.
She shared that those wishing to buy tickets from a seller through social media can look at details found on the seller's profile to determine whether they are human or a bot.
'Most of the time, they {bots} have only been a Facebook user for a couple of months or they only have a handful of friends or they have no posts to show,' Clements said.
2025 San Angelo Rodeo performance schedule announced
Clements also suggested buyers prioritize acquiring the tickets before providing money to a seller and to schedule in-person meetings with sellers at safe locations.
'Please, meet them in person at the police station where they have the safe drop-off, the safe transfer,' Clements said. 'If they don't want to meet you in person before you pay, then more than likely, it's not even real.'
She said that ticket scalping — a practice in which an individual purchases tickets and sells them at a higher price — has happened in the past and is not permitted under San Angelo Stock Show & Rodeo Association policy. Ticket resellers are only allowed to sell tickets at 'the price of the night.'
'I did have an instance, one or two last year, where people sold it higher than the face value, and their tickets … we took them back, we canceled their order,' Clements said. 'We have too many people that want to go for these people to be out here trying to sell it for higher than face value.'
Clements also advised 'buyer beware' should those wishing to purchase tickets attempt to do so through third-party websites. She recounted instances where websites allowed buyers to pay for tickets despite them not being on sale yet and where tickets for nonexistent seating rows could be purchased online.
Clement stated that, if nothing else, buyers may call the San Angelo Stock Show & Rodeo Association to check whether their tickets are valid. This method isn't always sure-fire, however, as digital tickets cannot always be readily viewed by the association.
'They can call for us to try and verify a ticket, but even then we still can't guarantee the legitimacy of it just because we don't see the ticket,' Clements said.
The United States Federal Trade Commission has resources online regarding how to avoid scams and what to do if you are scammed.
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