Flippin ticket touts

[Leggy]

Have now missed out to 2 events which have sold out instantaneously but appeared on Get me in and Ticket hub within minutes. In both instances prices were then 5 times the face value.
So if any of you get as cheesed off as I am today then it might be signing this petition. 38 degrees have a successful track record of getting campaigns into the public arena and getting stuff changed.
Got be worth a go?

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/ticket-tout...

[realjv]

Unfortunately this petition didn't make the 100,000 threshold for it to be considered Blythe government for debate in Parliment
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/128969

[Leggy]

That's a bugger. But I read that MPs were looking at again, so maybe it's worth a push again.

[Tom_C76]

As per the debate on the guitars thread, it's supply and demand. Just like limited run guitars that end up in the hands of "collectors" to reappear on the market shortly afterwards at inflated prices.

[ben5575]

In this particular case it's more like OPC's buying GT4's and reselling them at a mark up.

I get the whole supply/demand thing, but there needs to be some fairness in it. Allowing the sole supplier of the tickets to sell them to themselves to artificially circumvent the rules, then resell the tickets for twice the value is not fair.

Likewise I can't set up a computer programme to spam guitar selling sites to score lots of guitars like I can on a ticket website.

The change can be very simple. Only allow tickets to be resold at face value. To sell above is touting and therefore becomes illegal. If I buy tickets and can no longer go to the gig for whatever reason, I should be able to resell them, but only at face value. That seems fair to me.

Actually I quite liked the Bruno Mars system as a variation, where if you preordered a copy of his album you were given a presale code for tickets that went for sale on Friday last week prior to general sale on Monday this week. You support the artist (ok label) and get preferential treatment for tickets as a result. Again, a fair system IMHO.

[Tom_C76]

I agree resale at face value only would be fairer. Ignoring the contrast with the guitars then, maybe it's more like the short stock Rolexes that are lusted over on the Watch forum, available at a premium from "grey market" dealers. Wonder where they get their stock from?

[HTP99]

With the recent Green Day ticket sale for their tour next year, the post code of the person purchasing them is to be printed on all of their tickets and they have to be present, with id when attending the gig, didn't stop them selling out in minutes and being advertised elsewhere for many times their face value.

Reading tickets this year sold out, the promoters actually directed people to reselling sites that were advertising the tickets for many times their face value.

[Chicken Chaser]

I fail to see how ticket sellers can circumvent the rules? All theyre doing is providing above board touting, its no different to the blokes who stood outside of venues with handfuls of tickets.

I do wonder though if there is some kind of percentage of all sales via these agencies going to artists. It seems to be that all their monies now come in through ticket sales for live gigs rather than album sales, so one way to gain more revenue is to allow these ticket companies to inflate the values of a good percentage of them so that the artist or management company gets more money without actually listing the tickets as being prohibitively expensive.

If say, Kings of Leon started selling their gig tickets for £100 a pop, people would be pretty pissed off about it and probably wouldnt buy them. If they then sell them at market value, and then sell another 25% via stubhub or similar, theyre steadily increasing their revenues without alienating their fans. Its also a way to achieve maximum value as the prices of tickets steadily fall until they're sold.

[ben5575]

Chicken Chaser said:

I fail to see how ticket sellers can circumvent the rules? All theyre doing is providing above board touting, its no different to the blokes who stood outside of venues with handfuls of tickets.

I do wonder though if there is some kind of percentage of all sales via these agencies going to artists. It seems to be that all their monies now come in through ticket sales for live gigs rather than album sales, so one way to gain more revenue is to allow these ticket companies to inflate the values of a good percentage of them so that the artist or management company gets more money without actually listing the tickets as being prohibitively expensive.

If say, Kings of Leon started selling their gig tickets for £100 a pop, people would be pretty pissed off about it and probably wouldnt buy them. If they then sell them at market value, and then sell another 25% via stubhub or similar, theyre steadily increasing their revenues without alienating their fans. Its also a way to achieve maximum value as the prices of tickets steadily fall until they're sold.

By circumventing the rules, I mean that they could obviously simple sell 25% of the tickets or whatever to themselves for resale at a higher price and make a lot of money from it. It's a monopoly. You're right in that it is 'above board', because they are getting away with it at the moment.

Very good point re general pricing levels and 25% via stub hub. A system where 75% are sold at face value 'to fans' and 25% on an auction site so they can find their value would be fair if it was it was declared up front and controlled by the supplier/artist (as you suggest). This is different from the outlet (as opposed to the supplier) arbitrarily deciding and making money for themselves.

[singlecoil]

One thing that could be said is that the supply and demand thing can work in favour of somebody who really really really wanted to go to a particular performance. With a fair system then it would be the luck of the draw. With an S&D system you can go if you pay enough, you don't need to rely on luck.