Rant!

Really pissed off on a number of counts:

1) Why the f*** do they sell these things during the week?? Don't they realise that a lot of fans have to work? & hence have no chance of trying for tickets?? If it was on a Saturday at home, I'd have access to 3 phones & the internet. As it was, I had to ask my mum to try & get them. She had no chance!

2) Which leads me on to the fact that if they go on sale during the week there is far more chance for Touts to get them! & this is what really pisses me off!! No sooner have they gone on sale than there are loads of the things on Ebay! Are ticket offices really playing the game fairly?? Or do they release a load to touts who drop them a few quid?

& what do touts actually bring to society?? They complicate the ticket buying process by buying a load of them & for a lot of fans they have to go through extra hassle to get them. Like a middle man when there really is no need.

After which the lazy b****ds sell them on ebay for a tidy profit. Do these people pay Tax or VAT? Do they f***.

& what is being done about it?? sod all! Ticket offices make a few quid from it & ensure that their allocation is all sold, so they don't care. Ebay gets a load of trade so they don't care. But the fans get screwed every time!

Surely touting is illegal & if not, it should be! Ebay should have a rule whereby a user can only sell tickets once over a period of time (to give ppl with genuine reasons a chance). None of these block sellers. They clearly shouldn't be allowed.

So what is a fan meant to do to get a ticket? Either they are lucky on the day or they can pay £300 extra for a sodding boat cruise?

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I'm with you Mike - the entire process pisses me off. New York City has a no scalping law - but it doesn't extend to internet sales. And to see tickets on sale on e-bay BEFORE they go on sale to the public just exposes the fraud for what it is.

Kathleen

couldnt agree more. ticketmaster are now joining in with their own auctions. when i went on the site on friday you could "bid" on tickets in the front block but you couldnt just buy them, the starting bid was 120 pounds.

its way out of control and its the fans that are suffering. new laws are needed on this now. on ebay some tickets for 02 were for sale at 400 pounds each. the music industry is still so hot and pissed off about illegal downloads "stealing" from them. the government should focus on ticket agencies who have a monopoly on the market, charging massive "booking fees" and touts fleecing fans at hyper inflated prices.

I agree completely with you but as long as no action is taking it's damn easy money for the touts - so geuss your blaming the correct party, the ticketsellers
I once bought 15 tickets for a U2 concert, sold 13, made about 1100 euro's on it, profit.

Well at least you're honest about it. Im not gonna lie I have sold tickets in the past and made money. Its very tempting think "oh yeh il buy two for me and two for ebay" BUT this is the reason tickets have gone up so much in such a short space of time. And as for those who buy multiple amounts and basically do it for a job, it leaves us with no chance of getting decent tickets.

Instead of TM "joining in" and doing frigging auctions they should be clamping down on it. It can be done, make all tickets photo ID like they do at Glastonbury, make it harder for them. The only reason Ebay wont step in and ban it is because they make so much money from ticket sales.

The way I look at it is as long as we "the fans" continue to pay the money for the tickets, from wherever and whoever we get them from, they will continue to raise prices. I know it's already been said but it's the truth. As long as somebody somewhere can make money off of it it will continue to happen. On the other end of my own arguement, if we were to stop buying the tickets it would only hurt the band because there are too many artist touring for that to make a difference. I personally like what Sammy Hagar did this past summer. He toured the US and his tickets were about $20.00. that way after ticketmaster got their handling charge, printing charge, shipping charge and tax the tickets were still only $35.00 a piece. I know that is not a viable solution for every band and every tour.

the touts have tickets before they go on sale because the agencies give a wad of them out.

it's a total scam and everyone is in on it

I read an article in a norwegian (economy)newspaper about the blackmarket selling of tickets.

I'll try to translate the essence of it:

It says that the artists like Stones, Springsteen (Bon Jovi) etc. doesn't take high enough prices. They can sell the tickets at a higher cost. The secondhandmarked is often 50% or often even higher than the price the artist sell the ticket at.
From 1996 to 2003 the ticketprice raised only 9% in the US.
It says that Sprigsteen take only 1/4 of whats "he's worth."
-"Springsteen took $75 and later they cost $300 at the blackmarket."

10% of all tickets sold in the US is bought from blackmarket.

The conclusion is that if the artists raise the price, secondhandsale would be to expensive for people. The danger is that only people with LOTS of money can go to conserts, not the "regular" fan.


In some way his right. As long as people are willing to pay LOTS of money for tickets, they might as well go to the artist instead of some secondhanddude.

Stones have raised their ticketprice alot lately.

For those of you who understand norwegian, you can read the full article here:
http://e24.no/naeringsliv/article1743412.ece

I don't know how it is in US, UK and other nations, but here in Norway they're planning to make a law agains it. It will be interesting to see the result of it.

I agree totally. Never thought the 02 would sell out so fast at those prices but it did. It would have at £200 a ticket and they know it. Even Rolling stones sold out 2 nights at the 02 and the ticket prices were much higher than BJs.

that's a flawed argument. most people manage to get tickets for bands they like through legitimate channels. i cant think of a gig ive rfeally wanted to go to that i didnt manage to get tickets for....

all increasing the prices so that it wouldn't be worth the touts doing it would be to punish everyone with high ticket prices.