I haven't looked to buy tickets for anything for a while, so you'd know more than I would on that score. It might be the case that it's been blown out of proportion, I just see this as an example of corporates getting rid of "sleazy" touts just so they can replace them with an industrial equivalent. Some people were making a few quid and the big boys didn't see why it shouldn't be them.
These sorts of things are all made possible by the internet though, and I guess it's all fairly inevitable once you take that into account.

Now you understand. Oh and less of the sleazy if you don't mind...

Didn't see this programme, but is the practice any different to an individual selling "spare" tickets on Ebay, which I seem to recall promoters being up in arms about a few years ago? Or is OK if they do it, but not if an individual does it?

As Dave said, I've never had an issue getting a ticket for any event I've wanted to go to!

If people aren't clever enough to get on early and book their own tickets, then they deserve to be ripped off!

But wasn't the point of the programme showing that these companies were basically blocking punters, who considered themselves "clever enough to get on early and book their own tickets", from buying and then selling the tickets they had bought themselves on at inflated prices? Hardly deserving of ripping off Average Joe.

The ticket issue is a bit of a red-herring. Of course it's wrong but it is also of trivial importance next to problem of big business - when caught out by what few investigative reporters there are these days - slapping a high court injunction on the story. It begs the question - how many other public interest stories are currently being blocked by a legislative system which clearly favours the business class?

Every customer who was on there moaning about not getting a ticket was a dathery women who didn't have much clue about anything pretty much!

I fail to understand how you could not get a ticket for something you wanted to see. If it was that important to you, you'd get one by any means neccessary!

From the original link

"viagogo staff compete directly with real fans to buy tickets from primary ticket sellers, like Ticketmaster, for in demand events as soon as they go on sale. To get around systems put in place to prevent bulk buying of tickets, viagogo staff use multiple credit cards registered to different addresses"

That seems to explain some of it. It may not be illegal but it's a bit poor if your business model relies on blocking other people from buying a product so you can then sell the same product to the same person for a mark up, all the while masking your identity. And if there's nothing "wrong" with it, why the injunction?



I don't disagree totally, as long as by any means necessary involves exposing as bent those who buy tickets in an organised fashion, with no intention of going to said event, just so others who genuinely want to go have to pay more.

The conditions on which you buy most tickets are that you are not allowed to resell them. Obviously that's almost impossible to police but technically if you have a second hand ticket it will usually be void.

I wouldn't have a problem with someone who couldn't use their tickets re-selling them, as long as they do so at face value. In reality, most people would be glad to take a profit, and many put them up on eBay in an auction and sell to the highest bidder when they could put them on at face value (plus I suppose eBay charges and postage) and sell by "Buy It Now".

The fact is the promoters of the big acts mostly couldn't give a sh?t how the tickets are sold or how the fans have to get them, the big arenas could solve the problem, i.e. ticket only valid if accompanied by the plastic used to purchase it, or failing that, valid ID (since most tickets are printed with the buyer's name). Not technologically that hard, but zero chance of it happening, as whatever they say, the people concerned in the various parts of the supply and demand chain just want to make a quick buck and it's not much different to paying a supermarket £12 a kilo for beef they paid the farmer £2 for.

And in truth you could come up with any number of different types of intermediaries in all sorts of retail and services who add little or nothing in real value but inflate the price due to their middleman's cut. That's just life.

Again I don't disagree, but to use your analogy, no one is preventing me from getting beef at £12 per kilo from Tesco, by piling loads of mates into the shop in front of me to buy it, then popping outside and saying "here you go, £18 a kilo".

If I miss out by being dilatory, that's life, but the practice allegedly being used seems unfair (as in legally unfair, not boohoo unfair)

Definate rip-off, off which nothing will be done. Only way around this, is to simply not go to the events. The sooner the venues get back to selling the tickets, the better.

Next month at Cheltenham, it's cheaper to buy a ticket off touts outside than it is to go through the racecourse.

Haydock Park on fri 6th July. Evening racing + Madness in concert. £30/ ticket, multiply by 6 = £180. Add £1 for handling. £181 in total, bargain. Tickets available through the course.

I don't know why people are using the 'I've never had any problems buying tickets argument so I have no problem with it' argument because that isn't really what the programme was about. I've only ever not been able to buy tickets for a gig once and that was when I tried buying a standing ticket for Mumford & Sons and they sold out in 10 minutes (there was seating available, I just didn't want it). I would never use these websites to buy a ticket either.

The issue is that these companies are representing themselves as being 'fan to fan' services, when in fact they have deals with ticket promoters before they've even gone on sale. I think it said in the programme that they were allocated 29,000 tickets for a tour that Take That did. That is a lot of tickets, and after selling them with a mark up, a profit of probably over double or even triple the face value of the tickets. There's also a marked difference between one individual buying six or so tickets to sell on for a profit compared to a company employing hundreds of individuals armed with credit cards registered to numerous different addresses to buy up as many tickets as possible when they go on sale (while at the same time claiming that the only tickets they sell online are from genuine external sellers).

How come they were allocated ANY tickets for Take That, a tour bound to sell out in short order? The answer is that someone who thought they could get away with it and was in a position to do so, got this company to pay them well over the odds for these tickets, which they will have happily paid knowing they could make much more by hiking the price.

The scam involving staff members and banks of credit cards is to me potentially a fraud, and should be referred for criminal investigation. Obtaining by deception springs to mind.

It will never happen, the venues are not set up to sell tickets they way the big firms are, it takes a big budget to provide phone lines and webservers.

Would have to disagree Graeme, just about every concert venue I've been to has a box-office.

I tried to buy tickets to go see Flight of the Conchords a while back now, on a number of occasions from Ticketmaster. They went on sale on a Friday morning at 9am so I was on the website then but I couldn't even get through as I had been "blocked" from buying a ticket. Within about half an hour the event had sold out but tickets were available on Ticketmaster's sister site Get Me In for well over double the price.

The following week an extra date was added and the same happened again, I was blocked from buying. In the end I bought tickets from Ebay at nearly double the price, but this has happened to me on a number of occasions and as a result I now refuse to buy tickets from Ticketmaster.

And the vast majority of tickets are bought online now, you'll not change that and venues are not equipped nor staffed, to cope with long queues selling thousands of tickets.

I rarely go to concerts, but I tried to buy tickets for blink 182 last year on ticketmaster, Was a member of the official blink 182 website which gave me a chance to get pre sale tickets. Logged in with time to spare, they'd all gone in minutes, I Had no luck at all. So I tried the o2 pre sale thing, where again I didn't stand a chance, so then tried with ticket master when they went on general sale. And again the website was useless and I had no luck again. There was nothing I could do, to me it seems to be a case of being lucky enough to get through to the server rather than being online on time... I ended up paying £100 quid on seatwave for a ticket worth £30. and what about the "unfortunate" people who work and cant access the net when tickets go on sale?

Seat wave had hundreds of tickets up for sale for a big profit within an hour of them coming out on general release, touting outside a venue is one thing... but it's getting a bit out of hand when fans who are desperately trying to get tickets can't because of the hundreds of people getting hold of tickets with the sole intention of selling them on at a profit.

I feel like a mug tbh for paying so much, and if desperate people like me decided not to pay extortionate money to these selfish d1cks for tickets then maybe we wouldn't have this issue. But if I wanna go to the concert, i've gotta get one by any means necessary....

I have absolutely no issue with people ending up with spares for face value, and there are a few good people out there who do that. But imo this whole selling for profit thing needs to be stopped.

Likewise, but I can't think of many that don't sell their tickets online through third parties. Even the independents. I can think of several where it's the only option, especially independents.

Yeah I had a similar experience with the Stone Roses gigs.

Logged on well in advance, couldn't get them. Nor could my brother or old man.

10 mins later, lots on Ebay. Genuine fans do miss out.

No they don't, they pay more.
This free enterprise thing is a bit of a bugger isn't it...

Sorry Mr Big Graeme, not everyone is rich man like yourself.

I never pay more that face value (plus fees) EVER.

You after any tickets BTW? Coldplay and Stone Roses are doing quite well at the moment.

How much?

I was really wanting to go last year, now not so bothered.

I'm going to be careful how I phrase this, but recently I was talking to a member of a largely underground but with a good solid following band. They sell out medium sized venues regularly, and do tickets for their gigs. He worked for a company prior to the band taking off who resold tickets. The resellers had a very good inside line to the original sellers of a lot of these tickets. They may possibly have been mentioned in this thread, I couldn't possibly say as I've got the attention span of a hamster.

His band will not work with anyone connected with the company who were the original sellers above as he knows that the whole thing is a scam having seen it first hand. For all the original sellers 'open' appearance, there are (according the him) ways into the OS website that can be exploited for gain.

His argument is that when his band says they want to pitch a ticket at around X amount, they don't expect X amount to be paid by another company just so that their fans can pay 2X to the reseller. He wants their fans to pay X, not a multiple of X.