It is not easy to get your hands on a pair of tickets to see Taylor Swift in Toronto next month — and that appears to be a drawing force behind a massive 50/50 jackpot.
The Humane Society of Kitchener Waterloo & Stratford Perth is currently running a 50/50 draw that will see the winner walk away with more than $100,000, as well as a pair of tickets to see Taylor Swift in Toronto on Nov. 15.
A spokesperson for the Humane Society told Global News that employees were chasing down the tickets last year in advance of a potential fundraiser.
“We were eager beavers,” explained Adam Stevens, who is the organization’s director of marketing and community engagement.
“Once the tickets became available, right at the very beginning, we had staff members who were mashing the Ticketmaster buttons so that we could secure two tickets.”
But when they did get a hold of the tickets, the question became how to take advantage of the organization’s bounty. Stevens said they knew a draw was going to be the way to go, but they were not sure what form that should take.
“We weren’t really sure what that was going to manifest into until we actually sat down in the summer time and we said … ‘How do we want to do it?’” he explained.
“And that was when a couple of the staffers had raised their hands and they said, ‘You know what if this is like a 50/50 raffle for this?’”
Stevens went on to say that the exciting part is the winner would get some cash as well as the tickets, but they never expected to see the jackpot get so high.
“I believe our original target was $40,000 in total ,and so the idea was that some lucky person would be able to come home with $20,000 of that as part of that grand prize,” he said. “So we had no idea that we were going to have this kind of a runaway hit.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, the winner will take home $110,000 and counting as part of their prize.
That winner will also come from Ontario, as the draw is only open to Ontario residents. News of the bounty has begun to spread across the province.
“What’s interesting is we’ve actually had tens of thousands of entries across the province,” he explained.
“So not only in our sort of immediate neck of the woods, but we’ve had individuals who’ve come from all areas of Ontario enter into the draw.”
Who knows how high the total might have reached had the contest been open outside of the Ontario borders.
“We have had some inquiries from the United States around purchasing those tickets,” he said.
Tickets for the draw are being sold in correlation with numbers which “are really important to Taylor Swift,” according to Stephens.
So you can buy a ticket for $22, 13 for $50 and 89 for $89 and 999 for $250 as each number connects to Swift in various ways, such as 13 being her favourite number, 1989 being her birth year and 89 being the name of one of her albums.
Surprisingly, he said that they are seeing the most action of the $250 purchase which would give someone 999 shots at the money and the tickets.
There are still nine days to go until the draw comes to a close and for more money to be raised as well.
Stephen said the money will be used for a wide variety of projects including care of the animals such as food and vaccinations as well as other key items.
“This will fund critical programs such as our community outreach and engagement programs,” he explained. “A portion of it also goes towards our Better Together capital campaign that where we’re building a new building.”
Given the early returns, it will be tough for them to top this year’s draw.
“Who do we promote next year so that we can replicate this again?” Stephens wondered. “My hope is that Ed Sheeran ends up deciding that he’s going to do a tour. That would be great.”