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VELD Music Festival – whose 2025 lineup featured headliners like Dom Dolla, John Summit, Alesso and more – once again took over Toronto this summer, reaffirming itself as one of Canada’s premiere events. But with major festivals often comes an influx of ticket scams on social media – something concertgoers are all too familiar with these days – and this year, the Toronto community had a plan in place to fight back.
Canada’s largest Facebook rave group – Toronto Rave Community (TRC) – used to be littered with warnings and heartbreaking posts from fans who’d been scammed out of money for fake tickets. But this year, thousands bought and sold tickets peer-to-peer without a scam. So what changed? Frustrated by seeing their community members targeted, TRC partnered with goConfirm – a free anti-scam app used to buy, sell or rent on social media with confidence.
As many rave communities do, TRC launched a ticket thread for VELD 2025. But uniquely, they required sellers to use goConfirm and include an invite code in their comment so buyers could connect with them through the app. The thread had over 2,700 comments in less than two weeks.
“Big festivals like VELD always attract scammers in the group, and it’s frustrating to watch people in our community get taken advantage of,” says TRC admin Cody. “In the past, we spent so much time deleting fake posts, warning people, and trying to help members get their money back — it really took energy away from the fun side of the group. Since rolling out goConfirm, scams have dropped dramatically, and we can finally just focus on what makes the community awesome — celebrating music in our city, making the occasional meme, and getting hyped for the shows we love.”
While no system is perfect and rare cases of fraud still occur on the goConfirm app, they account for less than 0.2% of all interactions on the platform. And when they do happen, goConfirm is able to resolve the issue swiftly.
A case study arose ahead of VELD with a TRC member who flew over 1,000 miles to attend this year’s festival. Unfortunately, they had been scammed. Fortunately, because they used the goConfirm app, the app’s fraud team stepped in and investigated the incident. Within 30 minutes, they were in contact with the alleged scammer who ultimately refunded the buyer in full. The scammer was then banned from the platform along with hundreds of other online communities where the app is used.
TRC’s use of goConfirm for VELD has caught the attention of other communities across the scene looking to protect their members. The app has also been introduced in other Canadian cities like Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver and is breaking into the United States through numerous Burning Man groups, California’s The Rave Exchange, and sub-Reddits like r/UMF, r/ARCMusicFestival, and r/Coachella.
In today’s complex and ever-changing ticket resale world, platforms like goConfirm are giving fans and communities a much-needed way to buy and sell with confidence.
To learn more about goConfirm, visit their website.
Featured image: Tristan Renaud
The post How Toronto’s VELD Music Festival cracked down on ticket resale scams appeared first on Dancing Astronaut.
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