Ticket Touts

[Damini]

Make me sad. I've been waiting for Pearl Jam tickets to go on sale, signed up to every alert I could find, and still missed out. Now you see all these tout agencies selling tickets on for £100+ that they bought for £30, and tons of them on ebay, and it just makes you sulk. I didn't mind the old school touts, who stood outside in all weather, buying spare tickets and selling them on, but this new school of touting is pretty disgusting. I won't buy off these people on principle, but I really wanted to go

I think Glastonbury has the right idea. Hope it works for them.

 

[Sharma]

Kylie minogue had the right idea.

Supponea's were sent, addresses and information of touts were gathered, they then all got a bit of mail in the post saying "Sorry, your tickets have been voided due to breach of contract" or something, so they spent £xxx amount of money and ended up with basically is a worthless piece of paper.

Wish they'd do it more often.

 

[GReaper]

It's just too easy for average people to tout these days, making things even worse. I could buy extra tickets to an event and eBay them, offsetting the cost of my original tickets. Same thing applies to PS3, Wii, etc - buy more than you need and it's nearly guaranteed you'll get a profit.

It's up to those selling the tickets to make it more awkward to resell. Allow ticket sales by debit cards only with the name/address of the cardholder on the tickets and only post the tickets to the cards address. Limit households to a small amount of tickets. Produce only a single ticket, so that 2/3/4 seats only give a single ticket for a group booking.

Reselling tickets you can't use is fine, but blatant touting should be prevented as much as possible. Having a photo on your ticket might be a bit excessive and time consuming, but I'm sure there are other measures which would help reduce it.

 

[Chilly]

Just spend a bit of time employing some technology to counter it and it wouldnt be a problem. Issue tickets electronically (some people dont have computers/mobiles - screw em) and generate ticket number based on a hash of holder's name/dob/CC number so that you can only get in with ID - no need for photos on the tickets and it makes touting a big enough amount harder that its not really worth it. Especially for the common person who just ebays the *****.

I'm sure the system I proposed is flawed, but a similar idea could no doubt be implemented well without too much extra time or money needing to be spent. Of course you only bother with events where the ticket costs more than £xx so as not to take the piss.

 

[Damini]

I propose a system whereby if I see you selling 19 tickets for Pearl Jam's gig on ebay at a 400% mark up, I'm allowed to smear poo in your eyes.

And then report you to the tax man.

 

[inactionman]

Until I can get a full refund (including 'booking fees' etc.) for tickets which I no longer need (due to friends dropping out etc.) I will not support any restrictions on the sale of tickets. Otherwise what am I supposed to do with unwanted tickets?

If there's stupid idiots out there who will pay over the odds for tickets, then it's their fault. I always list mine on ebay with a starting price of a pound and put no reserve.

 

[tris-]

Until I can get a full refund (including 'booking fees' etc.) for tickets which I no longer need (due to friends dropping out etc.) I will not support any restrictions on the sale of tickets. Otherwise what am I supposed to do with unwanted tickets?

i agree with this, but i think the point is one person buying them all for no other reason but to sell them. there should be some kind of restriction in place perhaps.

 

[Damini]

Big difference between listed unwanted tickets, and buying out all the tickets for the show and selling them at inflated prices because it's "SOLD OUT" (because you bought all the tickets for the show).

Besides, if you really cared about selling on tickets and not profit, you'd do it through Scarlet Mist.

 

[caLLous]

I think Glastonbury has the right idea. Hope it works for them.

What are they doing?

 

[Damini]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6318519.stm

 

[Munkey]

People did this for the Explosions in the Sky concert coming up at the Koko club in London. 30 quid now for a single ticket on ebay.

Looks like i wont be going now

 

[inactionman]

I'd never heard of scarlet mist before, I'll have to give it a look! Mainly used ebay because of getting arsed around by people on gumtree.

Basically I don't agree with venues or promoters restricting any secondary sales, as long as they continue to refuse to give full refunds. As soon as they start doing that then they can look at any implementing restrictions they want.

 

[Aada]

If people can make a quick buck by selling something it will happen.

I'm doing the same with the PS3 they will be going for £800 a pop easily on ebay and you can bet your ass alot of people are going to do this.

When i went to get my Wii on launch night from my tesco extra pretty much everyone was buying them to sell on ebay. There was this guy there with a PDA telling everyone how much they are going for as soon as they heard this everyone bought around 3-4 each! good job they had around 50 consoles for sale.

It sucks balls tbh but if you don't do it someone else surely will.

 

[Damini]

It sucks balls tbh but if you don't do it someone else surely will.

Heh, the universal moral opt out battle cry.

Anyway, I don't care as much about PS3 and wiis because eventually everyone WILL be able to get hold of one, it's just a case of waiting. With gigs it is a one off event, there is a finite amount of tickets, and no amount of patiently waiting is going to change that.