Ticket scout scum why do they get away with it?

I wanted to get the Morrissey tickets last week but it has all sold out in 20 minutes, I was on the net 5 minutes before they went on sale and I could not get them, I gave up 40 minutes after.

I have just checked ebay and I am disgusted to see how many tickets are for sale there. Why can't tickets have names on so you need ID to get in?

It means genuine fans like me cannot get to see him because I am not willing to pay some crooke 100% the retail value for some tickets.

 

Tickets with names and addresses have worked successfully for Glastonbury for the last couple of years, there's no reason at all, other than money I guess, that such a method can't be adopted.

Sadly, it seems any big tour these days is almost more of an event for the touts than the actual fans. I was lucky to get tickets for Morrissey in May, but know of many who tried and couldn't get through.

I note the Arctic Monkeys tour sold out in about 15 minutes tonight... dread to think with the current success they're having just how much they'll go for.

 

It is a crap situation; perhaps they should revert to the old system of selling at least a proportion of the tickets at selected outlets on the high street (record shops etc) so that you have a chance to queue to get one, rather than clicking on the refresh button of your browser for 30 mins and then giving up.

Ebay also seems incapable of policing pretty much any of the items for sale, including ticket touts wares.

 

Earlier on this year i tried to get some tickets for Oasis at Aberdeen ECC. My wife assisted me as she wanted to go too. The tickets went live at 9:00am we had my house phone, my mobile, my wifes mobile and two seperate networked computers on a 2mb broadband connection trying to get tickets, via official websites and hotlines. All of the tickets for the tour where completely sold out by 09:05am, just 5 minutes later. On one of the websites i did get as far as inputting my Credit card details however i got kicked out when i pressed the submit button.

I eventually and begrudgingly bought two tickets off an E-Bay ticket tout for a total of £123.

The concert was F**king Brilliant, the band were on top form, the crowd were ace with plenty of band-crowd banter, local football songs which raised loads of wry smiles from the band, no video screens , and no 5 ants on a stage, i could see the wrinkles on their fingers !
Was i ****ed off at the price - yes. Is life sometimes **** - yes. Would i do the same thing again - yes. Was it worth it - yes.
How much do you lke your favorite band.....

Next time i try to get tickets for a sure fire sell out concert i'm gonna get two for me and two for e-bay,(if i get through), if you can't beat them, join em.

Although positive ID with address would be my preferred option.

One more thing AT, don't forget good old fashioned real ticket touts outside or near the venue. If are willing to take the risk and leave it until just before the main act starts you can often pick up a bargain. There where loads of touts outside the Oasis gig. I heard that folk where getting £30 tickets for as little as £10, (once the concert had actually started though), are you a chancer....

 

I was going to say the same about waiting till late and chancing it for a ticket. Can be very cheap then.

My brother picked up arctic MOneys tickets earlier. By the time he'd reached the front of the queue they'd reduced it from 4 tickets to two per person. I checked on ebay and they're going for well over £100 a pair.

I've been trying to get mighty boosh tickets but haven't managed to. A look on ebay and there's plenty going for close to £100 a pair too!

 

Ticket touts make me SICK. I *know* why footie tickets are sold the way they are, but surely a similar system should exist for normal tickets?

Touting is illegal, so why don't the cops nick any Ebay scum re-selling tickets?

Even free tickets for Live8 were on Fleapay

 

They get away with it because enough people purchase tickets from touts for them to make a profit. If people did not purchase tickets from them then the touts would I expect either drop the price of tickets (would people still moan if their prices came down?) or move into another business. If people excersised their economic muscle and refused to purchase tickets from touts things would I expect would change but I wonder if fans could also be relied upon to boycott the "Ticket scout scum" or would they become black legs and trade with the touts so as to see their favoured group?

No one is forcing people to buy tickets are they?

 

That is not the point, the point is the touts are stopping genuine fans from getting the tickets.

As already mentioned it is ilegal and the touts often also ask people if they want weed. As the business is essentialy ilegal I doubt pay income tax either etc.

There really does need to be a crack down on this but the venues seem to encourage it

 

Well that's not entirely true, as you'd have to be a genuine fan to pay over the face value off a seller on ebay.

I'm not convinced that all sellers on ebay are 'touts' anyhow, as it's not uncommon for people to buy tickets only for their plans or commitments to change - and if you cannot make the concert why not flog the spare tickets on ebay and make a profit while you're at it? I know I would! Admittedly if they're on ebay just minutes of being sold out at the ticket office then it could be viewed with a certain suspicion.

I do know someone who occasionally buys the odd pair of tickets to resell, but never more than a couple. He stumbled across this way of earning a couple of quid when he had tickets for a concert he couldn't get to...... He's skint, he needs the wedge, what can you say?! He doesn't do it on a regular basis though.

Personally I don't blame the actual touts, I blame the way tickets are sold that allow touts to buy up quantities that they can re-sell.

 

Who or what is a "genuine fan"?

Does the price charged by a tout or ebay reseller determine who is a fan and who is not?

Who is to say that someone who purchases a ticket from a tout or via ebay is or is not a fan?

Is fandom inversly related to the amount paid for a ticket?

I just don't know the answers.

PS I bow to the superiour typeing speed of la toilette

 

What annoys me isn't necessarily the touts, but the booking fee charged no matter how you buy the tickets...

 

The point is a lot of genuine fans may not be able to afford the £80 tout price but they will be prepaired to get up early and wait in a long que to get the tickets.

If it wasn't for the touts I probably would have got the tickets.

 

It's a hard life AT

 

Perhaps all tickets should be solld via dutch (descending price) auction, that way each buyer could decide what the ticket is worth and there'd be no profit for the touts.

 

Why should they? Its a marketplace not a shop.

 

Yes but you are not allowed to host ilegal items for sale surely? Its same with all the pirated CDs etc, ebay just turns a blind eye to it. Genuine copies of Office 2003 for £10 my arse.

 

Put that on ebay and you should make enough MOney to pay for that MOrrissey ticket in no time!

 

But that's it Greg, it's not a marketplace at all, it's a privately owned auction site where the owners make a cut from every transaction that's completed via it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big ebay fan, I love it, but ebay (Inc)know lots of dodgy items are put up for sale and they seem to do little about it - but maybe that's down to the sheer volume of items for sale, and maybe it's simply not possible to 'police' it without suffocating it. It does surprise me that more isn't done by software/record companies to challenge ebay over all the copied stuff you can buy tho', it's not hard to find as AT has pointed out.

 

From what I've personally observed they do often remove listings for porn, pirated software and films, they've banned Western Union, etc.

However they are a marketplace. Marketplaces in the real world may well be privately owned and do charge vendors to sell there. Bidding can also be seen in marketplaces.

There is no comparison between, say, John Lewis and eBay. There is a great deal in common between Exchange & Mart and eBay and I wouldn't go moaning to Exchange & Mart if I bought something dodgy and was unhappy about it.

The ticket touting issue is complex. I think it is the duty of the ticket vendors to change how they do it - eg. named tickets. This would kill ticket touting at venues and on eBay overnight. Why is it eBay whose at fault? What happened to supply and demand?

 

If the acts were that concerned about their fans, they would insist on a fairer ticket sale policy. They don't really give a toss so long as they get paid.

Rod