Pay Up For The Pope: Mass Tickets Going For $1K On eBay

By KARA SEYMOUR (Patch Staff)

Free tickets to see the Pope may have been snatched up in seconds, but you can still find some online — for a hefty price.

Tickets to three World Meeting of Families events that will feature the Pope were made available online this week and, not surprisingly, were in high demand. Ticket holders will be the only people permitted to go beyond designated security checkpoints. Click here to see the map.

Pope Francis is coming to Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families from Friday, Sept. 25 through Sept. 27. Click here to view Patch’s full guide to his historic visit.

On Tuesday, tickets to the Pope’s Independence Hall speech on Sept. 26 were snatched up in seconds through the World Meeting of Families’ website. The same thing happened on Wednesday to tickets for the Festival of Families and the Mass with Pope Francis on Sept. 27.

According to the Inquirer, it took 30 seconds for the 10,000 mass tickets to be claimed. There were as many tickets available for the Festival of Families and the Pope’s speech. Those were gone in the blink of an eye, too.

And it didn’t take long for the tickets to resurface at a high price on popular sites such as eBay and Craigslist.

Within minutes of the online frenzy for freebies, scalpers began posting Pope tickets for sale online.

The asking prices? As much as $1,000 per ticket for the Papal mass on Sunday, Sept. 27.

Craigslist didn’t offer up any online bargains, either. Shortly after the mass tickets were made unavailable, a Craigslist seller posted: “I have four tickets to sell. I’m willing to meet in person or I will accept PayPal and email them to you. $750 each. Don’t miss out on this opportunity!”

Scalped tickets for the Festival of Families, on Saturday, Sept 26, were a tad more affordable. On eBay, they started at $100. On Craigslist, tickets to “Meet the Pope” (read the fine print to learn personal Pope encounter is not guaranteed) were listed for $75.

Scalpers were also offering tickets for the Pope’s speech on Independence Mall for $200 and more.