Ticket terms and condtitions

Old tickets that I have from concerts, state tickets may not be resold

So for someone to email trading standards, they have to look into this, and deal withy the ticket touts

People often get the tickets as soon as they are on sale. If you don't and tickets sell out or you end up having to pay more to get them, that's your problem!

And if they want to charge based on where you're sitting fine. Some people like to look for a bargain and would take an average seat to save money.

I think people are being very bitter and cynical about this

It is not illegal, it is against the terms and conditions which is completely different.

No-one can seem to come up with a valid reason why it should be illegal, other than 'it's not fair'.

i echo the previous post, those are the conditions of sale, but it's not the law, so it's not illegal

tickets will also say things like cameras and recording devices aren't permitted, but it's not illegal/against the law to take photos or record video or audio at a concert. the management can ask you to stop doing it or ask you to leave, but that's only because the are legally allowed to ask anyone to leave for any reason (ie. if you are drunk or causing trouble)

the terms and conditions printed on tickets aren't usually laws, but if you broke the terms and were ejected or refused entry on those grounds, it would make it difficult to win a lawsuit to get a refund or damages

to cut a long story short, touting is perfectly legal, but trading standards can only get involved if a law is broken, such as street trading. you can sell tickets online without a licence for whatever sum of money you can get, and it's perfectly above board and legal and trading standards can't do a thing about it. the large companies wouldn't be able to do it if it was illegal

the "it's not fair" excuse is the only reason people can say it should be illegal, and that's usually from people who didn't go online when the tickets went onsale. you don't even have to go online to buy tickets, you can phone TM and other agencies, or visit ticket sellers in person. i doubt many people miss out on tickets because the don't have internet access

what would people complain about if all the tickets were bought by fans and they still couldn't get a ticket? they would then have little to no chance of getting a ticket for the show as they wouldn't have the chance of buying a ticket from a reseller. the touts provide a service for a price, it's up to you if you want it or not

it's funny that people don't complain the same way when other items are resold at higher prices, such as new games consoles or other collectible items, it's a similar practice

I understand your point, unique, but my complaint is that the first five rows of most of the venues on Will Young's tour were "not available" and were on Viagogo. I have this on good authority from someone who actually went to a venue to buy the ticket from the box office, only to be told that they did not have the front rows to sell.

i'm not being rude, but you contradict yourself if they "aren't available", yet on viagogo. i presume you mean those seats aren't available from say ticketmaster, but are available from viagogo? if that's the case, which is what your post suggests to me, then the tickets/seats are available to whoever wants to buy them

in the current day, for large events like these, it's not realistic to expect to get front row seats at normal ticket prices easily from the normal ticket agencies. promoters aren't going to sell the front few rows for the same price of say £35 as the seats 50 rows back

what would make it simpler is if the fanclubs pointed fans in the direction of where they can get the best seats, albeit having to pay a premium for them. sometimes that does happen, "gold circle" tickets sold at a premium price, available first to fanclub members, and are usually snapped up straight away, but if not they can be sold to the public

the viagogo matter is different from touting as they aren't really touts, what they are doing is completely above board and they are a recognised agency, nothing illegal happening. it might be considered immoral, but that's the music business. just imagine how much money that's taken gross from each concert and imagine how much has been spent on drugs and whores, and how much tax avoidance has gone on, and not just by the artists, but the artists management, the promotors, venue owners, you name it. that's the rock n roll business

personally, if there was an act i really wanted to see, and i knew that if i paid £100 instead of £35 and could get a seat in the first 5 rows, i'd do it, especially from a company like viagogo, as if the show is cancelled or rescheduled you aren't going to lose out, whereas you may if you bought from fleabay or a normal "tout"

What I meant (and should have said) is that the tickets are not available on the fans' presale on 10 June, Live Nation Presale on 11 June, or Ticketmaster's open sale on 12 June. It was only discovered when someone went to a box office and asked for front row (or thereabouts) tickets and she was told that they had been consigned en bloc to Viagogo!

On previous occasions we have been able to get front row seats at any of the venues. I myself got front row at Portsmouth last year and the same at the NEC for the Keep On tour. And these were at the normal prices - no Gold tickets or inflated prices.

We are quite prepared to pay a little more for good seats and would expect to pay slightly less for poorer seats as you do in theatres.

that's got nothing to do with touting though. most presales don't let you buy the best tickets, even the fan ones. that's something the promotor arranges with the fan club, who even if official, may not have much sway to get the best seats kept aside. usually in presales with TM they will set aside okay seats and try and sell as many as posssible, then when the main sale goes live there will be plenty of good seats left. they won't sell off the good seats in the presales and leave the crap ones in the main sale, they know that in the presales they can sell crapper seats to desperate fans

it is annoying when that happens though. if you at least knew that viagogo had them at the start you could buy straight from them instead of buying crap seats and finding out later

Which is actually what happened.

I have got front row tickets on several occasions in presales though, Will Young being one of them.

So have I but this time no-one got them.