Killers at the Royal Albert Hall

Cheapest circle tickets £95 on Seatwave.

Face value £35.

And Seatwave "profit" to the tune of £32.78 if you buy those tickets.

Why Isn't Seatwave Prosecuted For Ticket Touting?

Email to trading standards on it's way.

They'll pay tax on it.

Touting is big business. Some of the big ticket sites *cou...ticketmaster...gh* actually own some touting sites

There's quite a few sites which "tout" tickets and they get away with it. I agree that it should be made illegal.

I've found Seatwave to be more expensive than eBay.

ticket touting isn't illegal. it's of no concern to trading standards unless they break the law. they can sell £2 tickets for £2000 if they can find a buyer

Its disgusting, but doubt it will ever become illegal....although it really should be. Real fans are missing out, due to selfish, greedy people charging ridiculous prices.

Until there is a way of reselling tickets then it will not become illegal. The ticket companies sell tickets for concerts up to a year in advance and then provide no facility to get your money back if you can't attend.

I hate Ticketmaster. Their services charges can be absolutely disgusting. I'd support the tout on the street before I'd support Ticketmaster.

I try to buy from eBay. If you shop around and use common sense you can usually find trustworthy sellers who price their tickets within reason.

it absolutely ridiculous that this is allowed to continue through a loophole in the law. touting is, AFAIK, illegal, but its dressed up in such a way as to be legal.

the crap they (and others) spout about doing people a favour by making tickets available for sold out events is a crock of shit, as they wouldn't sell out so fast if they weren't snapping up tickets in the first place.

i see that aloud, hitherto one of the legit sites (along with TM and see) are now offering a similar service. i don't care how its dressed up, it it tantamount to touting, however you look at it.

its the one thing i've ever written to my MP about, and did get a bunch of info from his office in westminster about how it was an issue that was being looked at, but assume nothing has come of it.

Iain

the solution here is pretty simple - by all means have these sites to resell tickets, but make it illegal to charge more than the face value plus a nominal admin fee.

Iain

Touting is not illegal, never has been. Street trading, ie selling tickets outside a venue is illegal, but the actual reselling is perfectly legal.

Viagogo is just as bad. £35 tickets for Will's upcoming tour on there for £91. But what makes it worse is that as I understand it Viagogo have acquired the rights to sell the first five rows of most venues in his tour, making it virtually impossible for genuine fans to get good seats.

That is disgusting.

isn't the reselling of tickets outside a venue touting?

the point is the same though - both cases are, to all intent and purpose, touting. but these websites are effectively operating through a loophole in the legislation.

they might try to make out they're only offering tickets which were legitmately bought in good faith, and only subsequently found to be unable to be used.

but let's face it - they're not kidding anyone.

Iain

touting concert tickets online or whatever way you want to put it, isn't illegal in itself

what is illegal is street trading without a permit

thus selling anything on the streets without a permit is illegal, so it doesn't matter if you are selling bic lighters or concert tickets, if you don't have a permit, then you are breaking the law

if you do have a traders permit then you can probably sell what you like, including concert tickets, but i imagine traders permits have certain restrictions, you probably have to declare what goods you will be selling, and what location you are selling them in, so you don't get 50 people with street trading permits trying to stand outside the same tube station selling t shirts or something. you may well be refused a traders permit to sell concert tickets, but the point really is that touting/reselling or whatever you want to call it isn't illegal for concert tickets. the only powers that the police have is to arrest or move touts for trading without a permit, and that's what they do at the O2 in london for example

the promotors usually don't care, as they have sold the tickets and made thier money, likewise the ticket agencies, what you do with the ticket after you buy it is up to you, as long as the conditions of sale aren't broken and the venue management want to act upon it. so if you buy tickets from a tout, the venue normally won't care too much unless you are drunk or look like you are going to cause trouble

i think the case may be different for tickets for sporting events, but i'm not into sport so don't know or care

thus the websites selling tickets at inflated prices aren't illegal, and it's not illegal to sell the tickets on ebay either, it may be against the terms and conditions of the ticket, but it's not against the law so you can't be prosecuted for it

regarding some of the official touting agencies online, some of the bigger ones get tickets direct from the promotors. they will give ticketmaster and other agencies the bulk of the tickets to sell for "normal" seats, and they will give the best tickets, such as first few rows, to other agencies to sell at an inflated price, and probably at shared profits or higher wholesale value. call it touting if you want, but it's not illegal, touting in itself is not illegal

the reason the promotors would sell the best tickets this way is so they get more money for the best tickets obviously, but also so they can still declare the normal ticket prices at a lower price and so places like ticketmaster don't come under flack for selling tickets at crazy prices. also partly because after a certain time, if the tickets haven't been sold at the inflated prices they may then be sold at TM at normal price, which is what they will normally do for VIP ticket packages if they aren't snapped up at the bargain price of £500 for a ticket, 2 drinks and a couple of sausauge rolls with tour program. so that's how you get the best seats the day before the show at cheap prices, with the double bonus of pissing off the people sitting around you who paid daft money for their seats

yes - i get all that, but again, to all intent and purpose, the law is simply an ass, and such sites are only able to operate because of that.

if i sell a ticket outside a venue, for a friend who can't go, and only take the face value of the ticket, then i'm breaking the law.

but if i get my permit, set up a website, and go around buying up tickets for events with the premeditated intention of then charging above and beyond (by quite some margin) the original face value of that ticket, then i'm operating a perfectly legitimate business.

however that has come about, it is clearly a mockery of existing legislation.

Iain

any company is only able to operate legally because of the law. if you were to obtain a license and legally sell tickets on the street, your business would only last as long as you were able to obtain a suitable supply of tickets and you could sell them to make enough profit to cover your costs and your living, just like any other business. the fact is that you won't be able to do any of that, so the people who do sell tickets outside are breaking the law

usually the venue and police will turn a blind eye to normal punters trying to sell a spare ticket for face value, but they can't allow dozens of people to stand outside doing this for a number of reasons, such as blocking the passage, but also because it would then make it harder to spot real touts with multiple tickets

if you set up a website selling tickets you don't need any licence at all, it's just like any other business, if you were to sell t shirts or cds. going back to the first paragraph, your busines would only exist as long as you could obtain a supply of tickets, make a profit and cover costs. it's not quite as simple as it sounds, which is why these kind of agencies don't last too long and go bust, and why the bigger agencies are still around, as the trod on the competition

if you do have a spare ticket to sell, you can always advertise it online and hand over in person, meet at a cafe or pub near the venue, so you aren't on the street, and you usually won't get a problem that way. you can usually find people who want spare tickets on the artists fansites and forums

it doesn't make it impossible for geniune fans to get good seats, they just have to pay the going rate if they want them, and they can get them from an established company

regarding the selling of the first few rows at a higher price, it's just market forces at work

artists and promotors know that these are usually the most desired seats, and they know that people are prepared to pay a premium price for them, so rather than sell the seats at the front for the same price as those umpteen rows back, or even right at the back, and then give the opportunity to touts or fans to resell them at a higher price and keep the profit, they got wise to this and now sell them at a higher price themselves so they get the profit instead of someone else who has nothing to do with the show. in some way it means that fans who really want the best seats and are prepared to pay for them can get them without resorting to unofficial touts and agencies. it's common at all sorts of events for seats closer to the front to cost more than those at the back, for example at the O2 the floor tickets will be one price, lower tier a bit cheaper, and uppier tear a bit less. in theatres, the seats on the floor are the most expensive, and upstairs a bit cheaper. they've just taken things a bit further so the very best seats at the front are being sold for closer to what the real value of the ticket is for

you can think about it this way, if all tickets are £35 on the floor, and you are 30 rows back, your seat isn't as good a view as front row, but you have paid the same price as front row. if you think about this in reverse, your seat isn't as good and isn't worth as much as the front row seat, so maybe you should have paid less for the seat at the back than the folk at the front? of course it doesn't work that way as more people have further back seats, and the name of the game is to sell each seat for as much as you realistically can, whilst trying to sell out the venue, so the obvious thing to do is sell your prime seats for a higher price, just like a butcher sells the best parts of the cow for higher prices than he will sell the tail for. think of concert promoters as butchers, and the artist as the lamb to the slaughter, and that's the best way to sum up the music business

Why then don't they price the tickets for concerts in the same way as theatre tickets? Front stalls and circle the highest prices and the back stalls, circle and balcony a lower price? Seems logical to me.

The things about Seatwave and Viagogo is that the extra money isn't going to the artist, the promoter or the venue but in some greedy person's pocket!

That's exactly what I said. Selling tickets online or in a newspaper etc is perfectly legal and so it should be.

selling tickets online at their face value, to people who want to go to the concerts should be legal.

being able to buy up large numbers of tickets at face value, with the sole intention limiting supply, and artificially driving up the price, and reselling them on at vastly inflated prices really shouldn't be legal though.

at least not for any reason i can think of.

Iain

the going rate should be the face value of the ticket, not the price that the wealthiest can happen to afford / be prepared to pay.

i would dispute that the going rate for a decent seat at a killers concert is £250. i'd say its an artifically high rate resulting from tickets being taken out of the regular market place, limiting supply and so driving up the price.

Iain

artists don't want promotors or ticket sellers to show the transparancy of ticket prices in that way as it's basically saying all the rich fans can stand down the front and get the best experience, and all you poor lot can sod off down the back

i'm not sure about seatwave or viagogo in particular, but with some of these agencies the extra cut is going to the promotor and sometimes the artist. it depends on the deal. sometimes the artist is paid a fixed fee for the gig, regardless of the number of tickets sold, and it's then up to the promotor to make that money back, plus cover all other costs, such as advertising, venue hire, pa hire, hotels, travel, you name it, and make a profit. some artists have openly admitted or been proven to have involvement in this practice and make a direct profit from this way of selling tickets. it's only really the smaller touts that pocket the profits themselves, but like any other business, sometimes they make a profit on a gig, and sometimes they lose out if no-one buys tickets from them at a profit, such as if extra tickets go onsale, or shows get cancelled or rescheduled or extra shows added

the problem isn't just the touts, it's the promotors, ticket selling agencies, and the artists. some promotors staff even sell tickets on fleabay themselves when shows are sold out. that's why fleabay was flooded with tickets for a particular set of shows coming up soon

the frustrations of fans are understandable, but changes in the law like some people suggest, as simply going to help promoters charge more for tickets directly, as making touting illegal and enforcing it will remove competition, making it more of a monopoly for ticketmaster to charge what they want for tickets. it still wouldn't stop viagogo etc selling tickets at £200 for front row as they can simply print whatever price on the ticket that they want. the big companies have taken over ticket selling in a big way, the smaller touts on the streets are small fry

what the touts do offer however is the chance to see gigs that are sold out. you may have to pay extra to do so, but you then have the choice. if touting was illegal you wouldn't have that opportunity, so if the measures you suggested were illegal, you would have little to no chance of seeing your favourite band if it sold out, and with many popular shows selling out in 15 minutes of going on sale, if you snooze you loose, and that's it

as much as i'd hate to give a tout more than face value, if it was between that and missing my favourite artist, i know what i would choose, and many others would do the same, otherwise there would be no demand for the touts

part of the problem is promoters choosing to put bands on in smaller venues so they have a sold out tour, rather than in bigger venues that aren't sold out, so the next time they play they can play a bigger venue and sell that out, so they go from club to theatre to arena to stadium, to outdoor venue as the years progress. if a tour doesn't sell out quickly, the fans won't rush in the same way to snap up tickets the next time

Am I missing something here, isn't that how business works

Supermarkets buy food for pennies and sell it for several pounds, that's how it works

I'm sure same goes for anything else

Why should it be illegal though? Is the resale of any other scarce commodities illegal?

it should be illegal because people who didn't go online when tickets went onsale originally didn't manage to get tickets and are annoyed because they have to pay more if they want to see the artist or band they didn't make enough effort originally to get tickets to see. it's ridiculous that this nanny state allows capatalism to prevent me getting front row tickets to see miley cyrus without paying through the nose

Some people don't go online for reasons other than not "making the effort". Not everyone has the Internet!