This is not manufactured spending, it's a business buying and reselling tickets. Keep full records of each transaction, and any incidental expenses, because any net profit is subject to income tax.
The OP’s ticket broker friend is in the business of buying and reselling tickets, the OP isn’t. The OP is simply letting his friend use the OP’s credit card, thereby creating spending on that card that would not have otherwise occurred. That sounds like manufactured spending to me.
If I go to a restaurant with a group of friends, and I pay the tab, and my friends each reimburse me, does that mean that I am in “the business of buying and reselling restaurant meals”? No, of course not. But I have increased the spending on my credit card, without actually increasing my own spending. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it is manufactured spending.