Golden Ticket: Atlantic City chocolatier pulls Wonka-style drawing for Taylor Swift tickets

Bar 32, a chocolatier and bar out of Atlantic City, are raffling off a pair of Taylor Swift tickets. The entry fee? One $10 bar of fancy chocolate. Remind you of something? Maybe a popular children’s novel? Or a much beloved-1971-American-musical-fantasy-film-starring-Gene-Wilder?

The drawing is the latest illustration of Swiftie hullabaloo resulting from a ticket sales fiasco that has solicited the attention of politicians and attorneys general across the country. Here’s what you need to know.

Before you pull your wallet out, they’re already sold out.

Atlantic City’s Bar 32 announced Sunday that purchases of its $10 limited edition Holiday Bar would count as entry into a raffle for tickets to see Taylor Swift’s May 13 Philadelphia performance at Lincoln Financial Field.

The chocolate bars are comprised of 60% dark chocolate combined with broken candy cane pieces. The chocolatier said online that it produced 3,000 bars and was limiting purchases to 50 per person.

“We’ve always wanted to incorporate a ‘golden ticket’ within our chocolate bar and shop,” said Bar 32 assistant chocolate maker Katie Callazzo. “We are overwhelmed by how much support we have gotten with our contest.”

Instagram posts by Bar 32 show the bars were already “almost sold out” with less than 500 remaining that same day. Callazzo said the bars sold out Wednesday night and they don’t plan on restocking.

Each bar purchased had a number on it. On Christmas Day, the chocolatier will host an Instagram Live number drawing to announce the winner.

From the start, Swifties seemed doomed.

It started on the first day of pre-sale tickets for the pop singer’s Eras Tour. A pre-sale meant for about 2 million fans was quickly overwhelmed by 14 million fans and bots. The intense demand forced Ticketmaster to cancel the ticket’s general sale. In turn, the re-sale value for tickets has soared.

Swift has three consecutive show dates in Philly — considered hometown shows for the Reading native. The middle date, May 13, was particularly desirable for fans because 13 is Swift’s “lucky number.”

» READ MORE: Philly Swifties duke it out for ‘Eras Tour’ presale tickets, complain of Ticketmaster crashes

Tickets for the May 13 date, which Bar 32 is raffling a pair from, are being re-sold on StubHub for prices starting at $630. The most expensive listing for that date is a club suite ticket going for $45,000. Bar 32 did not specify what section the tickets being raffled off are in, so the exact value isn’t known — but it’s definitely higher than a $10 chocolate bar.

Bar 32 isn’t the only company capitalizing on Swiftie-monium.

Dozens of giveaways for Swift shows have been posted on Instagram by various brands and companies.

On Instagram, giveaways like these are a tactic brands can use to super-boost their following and engagement. Accounts will prompt users to tag, follow, share, send and save the post on Instagram, in turn raising their metrics and upping their follower count for future content.

In Savannah, Ga., Origin Coffee Bar is hosting an Instagram contest for tickets, airfare, and a hotel stay. Sonic Boom, a record store out of Ontario, hosted a Taylor Swift dance party last week and gave away a pair of tickets. Sweet ‘N Low — the zero calorie sugar substitute — ran an Instagram contest for fans “feeling SWEET on Taylor Swift’s new tour, but LOW that [they] couldn’t get tickets” (we cringed at this too). And radio stations across the country are hosting their own raffles.

For those without the resources or budget to afford $600+ tickets, a free or inexpensive raffle could be their best bet at seeing Swift live.

To paraphrase Grandpa George from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: “There’s plenty of money out there. They print more every day. But this Taylor Swift Eras ticket, there’s only *about 2 million* of them in the whole world, and that’s all there’s ever going to be.”