Sam Fender Postpones Newcastle Presale After Reported Bot Attack

Sam Fender has postponed the presale for his homecoming shows at St James' Park in Newcastle after what has been reported as a sophisticated bot attack. The presale is now due at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, 29 October, Billboard reported.

A presale is an early ticket window, usually open to fans who have a code or have signed up in advance, before tickets go on general sale to everyone. Bots are automated programs that can try to buy large numbers of tickets within seconds, leaving human buyers with little or nothing. The affected St James' Park presale was being run on Gigantic, a ticket site.

Fender announced the postponement through his Instagram Stories. The delay applies only to the Newcastle presale. Presales for the rest of his tour are running on Ticketmaster and were reported to be unaffected by the attack.

The Newcastle shows are the start of Fender's Proper Massive stadium tour. The tour begins at St James' Park on 3 June 2027. Billboard reported on 21 October that Fender had announced a 10-date tour of stadiums in the UK and Ireland for 2027, with two nights at Wembley Stadium in London.

Ticket pricing has also been part of the story. The BBC reported on 25 October that Fender had removed a ticket category from sale because he was unhappy with the prices for the tour.

The general sale for all of the tour's shows opens at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, 30 October. For anyone hoping to go, the practical details are the two dates and the times. The Newcastle presale moves to Thursday, and the wider sale follows the next morning.

Bot attacks are a recurring problem for big concerts, and they are not limited to one artist or one ticket site. Fans who are trying to buy in the coming days should expect the same queues and the same speed that came with the original sale window. The advice from ticketing services is usually to sign in early, keep one device and one account, and be ready at the opening time.