Taylor Swift ticket demand swiftly declines as second Minneapolis date goes on sale

So much for having to fight scalpers for Taylor Swift tickets this time around.

With Twin Cities fans once again being asked to jump through hoops this week to buy tickets for her newly added second concert at U.S. Bank Stadium, it's probably worth pointing out that seats to the previously announced show are far from sold out – and they're even selling well below face value on ticket resale sites such as Stubhub and VividSeats.

Looking over the offerings on those sites for the Sept. 1 concert (which went on sale in December), it's easy to find seats throughout the stadium priced $100 or more less than what they are now selling for on Ticketmaster. Even some of the cheapest nose-bleed seats are available via resale sites at a $50 discount under face value, amounting to about a 25 percent markdown.

Here are some examples of ticket options for the Sept. 1 show as of mid-day Tuesday:

Section V3 (lower bowl mid-stadium): $220-$295 lowest prices on Stubhub vs. $395-$500 on Ticketmaster.

Section 118 (lower bowl rear): $186 lowest on VividSeats vs. $355 on Ticketmaster.

Floor E (main floor center front): $389 lowest on Stubhub vs. $425 on Ticketmaster.

Section 334 (rear upper bowl, aka nosebleed area): $149 lowest on VividSeats vs. $207 on Ticketmaster.

These are the prices before the processing fees, which are comparable on those resale sites to what they are on Ticketmaster (around an addition $50 per ticket).

U.S. Bank Stadium representatives and Swift's marketing team cited "overwhelming demand" when they announced the second date on her Reputation Tour in Minneapolis, which will actually fall the night before the initial show, Aug. 31. However, many fans were turned off nationwide by both the steep ticket prices on the tour and the hyper-gimmicky way seats were sold. U.S. Bank Stadium's own reputation for poor acoustics from several prior concerts also may have lessened the demand locally.

Swift implemented a unique version of Ticketmaster's Verified Fan program, wherein fans could get "boosted" in the virtual line by watching her videos or ordering her album. The same program is in effect this week, with fans in the program being offered special windows of time to buy their seats to the Aug. 31 date.

National reports on Swift's tour have been mixed and even outright conflicting, with Forbes reporting that tickets are "selling miserably." However, Billboard claimed that Swift's stadium outing will still be one of the top-selling tours of all time, on track for an estimated $450 million gross in ticket sales. Who cares about a few empty seats with a figure like that?