Rant!

Why not get in late? Or have a last minute doctors/dentist appointment?

I think I'd sooner opt for the above and risk a possible rap across the knuckles than be certain of missing out on the chance of seeing Jovi live.

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/200704.sh...07-04-18082029

scroll down to the live earth stuff........

i don't get why they don't just ban the sale of concert tickets altogether, let alone for a charity event!!

They're winding us up

This is so that THEY can still be allowed the platform where people can sell tickets

Because you may as well ban the sale of diamond rings, vintage t-shirts or prime real estate. Concert tickets are simply a scarce resource like any other. Scarcity and demand together create a market, which sooner or later somebody is going to exploit, whether legal or not.

There is no reason in the world, none whatsoever, why Concert tickets should be exempt from the laws of economics or why customers should be given special protections. As has been mentioned earlier here, many concerts are sold at less than the market would bear. We should be grateful for this, rather than complaining when tickets are sold second hand for their "true" value.

The only way the situation is ever going to change is to stem the demand for touted tickets or offer an alternate means of supply. Scarlet Mist is a great example and I'm sure many people here dispose of their unwanted tickets at face value, to genuine fans. Small gestures, but ones which keep a few people away from the touts.

A situation where the resale of tickets was banned would be much less pleasant for us all. The Glastonbury Preregistration system just seems horrific to me. There is no way you should be made to proove your ID for the simple pleasure of enjoying live music and, with the best will in the world, tickets will need to be transferred for genuine, honest reasons.

It is easy to see why people get upset about it. Artificially creating a shortage and making it harder for honest people to buy tickets does after all break the Golden Rule. There is no way I would want to be exploited that way myself, and no way I would treat others in that fashion.

At the end of the day, though, this is a situation that arises naturally and is no way something I would want the legal system to interfere with. Do we really want to clog up courts and police stations with this? Surely there are more pressing issues. It is just hard to see who the victim is here. If you say the band is loosing out, then you are just asking for higher ticket prices from the promoters. Otherwise all that means is a slightly larger proportion of any audience will be slightly wealthier and some ebay guy somewhere earning money out of all proportion to his efforts.

I just can't get too wound up about it. In 20 years of going to shows, I have never had to resort a tout. Even if not one ticket ended up on eBay, it wouldn't have made a scrap of difference to Mike's situation. That arose purely because he couldn't get to a computer at 9:00am on Friday morning.

On that point. Tickets come onsale on Fridays because office staff tend to get paid more to work at weekends.

My fantasy solution would be to auction 100% of all concert tickets everywhere and see what things are really worth. Any show you go to that hasn't sold out has pitched its ticket prices too high. For every concert you lost out on, there would be plenty of bargains to be found. Ther is after all, only so much money in the marketplace that people are willing to spend on entertainment. We must be pretty near that point already.

Once again, a ridiculous solution whereby, unless you drive a Mercedes, you won't manage to get a ticket. I'm sick of people suggesting initiatives which price out the regular Joe Public in a bid to somehow make things 'fairer'.

I think the Glastonbury ID ticketing system is brilliant. If the rules over resale are as stringent as this, people might put a little more thought into whether or not they can actually manage to attend a concert. The knowledge that their ticket is useless and cannot be resold if they are unable to attend (for whatever reason) would be deterrent enough to disuade touts and people who purchase 'on the off-chance they can attend'.

Yes, you will get people who cannot go for genuine reasons but this is a small price to pay for the larger number of people currently getting screwed left, right and centre by scummy touts getting rich off of other 'true' fans' misfortune.

Auctioning tickets to the highest bidders is absolutely ridiculous and would be a massive step in the wrong direction as far as your general 'gig-goer' is concerned. You cannot make currently unfair systems any fairer by stipulating a financially-governed means of allocating tickets - and it would not stop the touts anyway! They would just auction them off even higher.

You are demonstrably wrong. It would take a few "ultra premium" events beyond the means of the regular fan, sure. Including, probably, the 02, but I've paid £60 for concerts before that have been a third empty on the night and half the shows I go to aren't sold out. These would all come down to a respecable level.

I really doubt that it would raise prices too much. Even for the Police, there are good seats on Ebay - front block - for about £120 (if you are prepared to try your luck on auctions rather than jumping at ridiculous buy-it-now prices). When you consider they were £90 face value (plus fees) and the small number of tickets on the black market, it's reasonable to assume that on this occasion the ticket price was pitched about right to begin with.

Enough with the Everyman crap. There is no honour in being "regular Joe Public". You are glamorising the fact you don't make as much money as you would like and denying yourself your individuality.

Why on earth do you have a problem with people who purchase "on the off-chance they can attend"? Jeesuswept. Why shouldn't they buy tickets on a contingency. I'm sure the majority are decent, well-meaning people who don't intend to exploit their good fortune to score tickets. Many people bought 02tickets on wednesday, knowing full well there was a decent chance they wouldn't use them if they scored better tickets on Friday. Nothing wrong with that at all.


Not at all. It's arbitrarily deciding that if someone is going to lose a lot of money that it should be an innocent victim who say, falls ill at the last minute, or has to attend a funeral, rather than someone who voluntarily hands over an extortionate price to a seedy businessman.

At the NME tour a couple of years ago, some lad had travelled down from liverpool to see the Killers. He walked up, pissed, and began a conversation with "so how much did you pay for your ticket? £15? Well I paid seventy for mine. He was actually proud of the fact. I am happy to see ****tards like him ripped off.

In what way is the current system unfair? For hugely in-demand events, you almost always pay less for a ticket than you could sell it for if you so desired. You receive both a bargain and an opportunity. You should be glad you are going at all and stop bloody whining.

We already have a financially-governed means of allocating tickets. Why do you think the 02 cost £100? My suggestion would simply have been to make the market more responsive so that prices could fall below the level set by promoters as well as rising above it.

- and it would not stop the touts anyway! They would just auction them off even higher.[/QUOTE]

Clearly wrong. I don't see a black market for Bon Jovi's cruise tickets - at £352 they are at the very limit of what the market will bear. I doubt you will see these on ebay for £500 any time soon.

Ticket agencies need to rethink their policies too. They are saying you cant re-sell tickets yet in most cases wont let you get a FULL refund for tickets you no longer require. In fact when I recently tried to send back tickets the company actually told me to "try ebay".

You sound like a politician - if there's a problem, price people out, that'll solve everything!

And what the hell does that mean? It is a pefectly valid point and is at the forefront of everyones' minds when they get their wallets/purses out to buy tickets - are they outpricing the average wage-earner? If it's 'yes', that can hardly be called fair! Whether people consequently opt to pay for the tickets is based less on the logic of 'Can I afford it?' and more on the notion of, 'Would I regret it if I missed it?'

You also referred to how a few high-priced events would result in other gigs being more affordable. The whole point is that people want to go to the shows they want to see and not be priced out to the extent of being forced, if they wish to see a live band this year, into going to a less attractive alternative. The prices should not be so much higher because the artist has a bigger fanbase. Reasonably higher yes, but extortionately priced?

Once you've stopped with the melodrama, you might appreciate that the, 'on the off chance,' comment implied that people might put a little more thought into how they are going to actually ENSURE they will be going to the gig. This opposed to, 'It'd be nice to go to that concert, I'll buy them!' before then working out it's too expensive to travel or the dates don't fit with other engagements they have. People have enough forewarning of when a pre-sale or a general sale is going to take place to work out the logistics of the entire trip before buying. It all comes down to courtesy towards fellow fans as I have mentioned before.

Voluntarily handing over an extortionate amount of money? I'm sure they loved every second of being robbed in broad daylight! Given the number of people who actually are affected by the above tragic situations compared to those that end up being forced to buy their tickets from touts, I think the latter is the lesser of two evils and is a more efficient way to distribute tickets.

I'm sure if someone who should have been attending a gig was hit by a bereavement, the last thing on their mind would be, 'How do I shift this concert ticket?'

I am glad I am going, believe me, but I'm also not a cold-hearted bastard like some people who don't care that fellow fans are getting ripped off by society's low-lifes!

The O2 cost £100 because of the capacity. The promoters, the artist and every single person who makes their living putting on a show like this have to recover costs. Stadium shows which have triple the capacity have proportionately cheaper average tickets. In fact, for the best seats in the house at a stadium show, you actually pay disproportionately higher prices than the O2 gig has been charging.

Auctions don't make the market more responsive in the way you have stated. You would NEVER find an occasion where ticket prices would fall below the level set by promoters because it's an unfortunate fact that too many people have more money than sense.

That to set this argument up as embattled working man vs. evil business scum is really oversimplifying things. Appealing to "regular joe public" plays into this perception.

I totally agree that this emotion gets exploited. But are there that many events that are truly unique to the point that no other experience will be a reasonable substitute? I could save the £150 the 02 will cost me all in all and instead enjoy a European festival, a parachute jump or a meal from Heston Blumenthal. I could see Hanson 7 times or enjoy a couple of hours with a call girl. No one forces anyone to buy a ticket second hand - the transaction is entirely voluntary.

And more to the point. It is people's willingness to pay inflated prices that creates the market in the first place. If no one wanted to buy resold tickets, there would be no touts. Your anger is misplaced.

My point was that at the moment ticket prices do not reflect their value. Some are overpriced, others undervalued. Assuming that total amount of money the live-music industry AS A WHOLE takes will (more or less) remain the same, auctioning 100% of the tickets would even out these bumps.

You sound like a communist. If there's a problem, let's create a beaurocracy to help us share nicely.

Oh, come on. We're all Bon Jovi fans here. Melodrama is practically mandatory.

I have brought multiple tickets for shows on the assumption that I would sometime in the future find friends to accompany me and can even like the adventure of having to figure out how I'm going to afford and manage a trip when I have booked a distant, exciting show. There is no way on earth I am going to feel guilty about this. If things don't work out, I'll sell a ticket at cost. Because I am a nice person. But it should still be my right to take a chance and to transfer my ticket to whomever I chose if things go wrong.


I wish that were true. But there have been many, many big gigs placed on sale the day after they have been announced.

Now who's being melodramatic?

Bon Jovi is a pretty unique case in this respect. For almost every other artist, a stadium show will be more expensive than one in an arena - Muse for example was £42.50 at Wembley compared with £27.50 in arenas the year before. Arena shows likewise are generally more expensive than theatre shows.

It is only when a band reaches a certain level of popularity (i.e. substantially bigger than the venue they are playing in) that the reverse will hold true. I'm sure there are a lot of one-off costs involved in bringing the show to the 02 arena, but nowhere near enough to push the cost up to £100 per seat. You don't have to look far at all to see similar shows mounted for half the price. The ticket price we ended up paying was, in no small part, inflated as a means of allocating tickets and a step towards a market price.

You get that now! Go to a gig that isn't sold out and you will get tickets from a tout for less than the box office price. Hell, you even find people kind enough to give away spares from time to time.

No, I'm not - it really is that simple.

If you sell it at face value, good for you - I admire you for that. Most others aren't like that though and unfortunately they outnumber the nicer more thoughtful members of the population.

That's the real picture. People are getting ripped off and even those that aren't the victims are entitled to feel empathetic anger.