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Old 04-10-2011, 18:10
Felis_Catus
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So the concert ticket you wanted 'sold out' within 5 minutes of being on sale? Oh really?

Unsurprisingly it never takes long for these tickets to appear on auction sites, et cetera.
Please share your thoughts and feelings on this subject.

My most recent disappointment was for The Cure and their upcoming Royal Albert Hall gig. As a fan for many years I feel that my days of attending gigs (of well established bands) could be coming to an end. There's expensive, there's extortionate and then there's taking the p*ss. Touts are not music fans and I'd like to see changes made to the way genuine tickets are sold.
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Old 04-10-2011, 19:00
BrunoStreete
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I believe we live in a free market economy and you shouldn't place restrictions on enterprise. It's upsetting when you can't get tickets but I don't think anything you should be done about it.

How do you know they are not music fans?
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Old 04-10-2011, 19:17
__3kerry
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I believe we live in a free market economy and you shouldn't place restrictions on enterprise. It's upsetting when you can't get tickets but I don't think anything you should be done about it.

How do you know they are not music fans?
when they appear on ebay for over double the original price about 10 minutes after the event has sold out..
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Old 04-10-2011, 19:19
BrunoStreete
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when they appear on ebay for over double the original price about 10 minutes after the event has sold out..
But they could still be music fans, it's a bit of a presumption to make.
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Old 04-10-2011, 20:09
PhilH36
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So the person who placed two tickets for Lady Antebellum at Union Chapel on Ebay for £135 at 9.10 last Wednesday,ten minutes after they'd gone on sale with a face value of £25,is clearly a fan then??
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Old 04-10-2011, 20:28
DEADLY_17
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i dont mind paying a bit extra but it annoys me when they have high seats and they go for £200! like really come one
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Old 04-10-2011, 20:57
__3kerry
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But they could still be music fans, it's a bit of a presumption to make.
I'm not saying that not anybody who puts a ticket on ebay isn't a music fan because sometimes you genuinly can't make an event after booking, but it seems odd that it's suddenly about an hour after buying tickets they end up on these sites overpriced?
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Old 04-10-2011, 21:21
nikproffitt
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Not all people who sell tickets on ebay are touts.

Some concert tickets go on sale months before the actually event. Circumstances change and you cant always go.

Its actually worse for comedy shows (yes I know this is the music forum) some of those go on sale over a year before the show.

I have sold tickets on ebay, however I normally start the auction at just below face value, if people choose to bid up the price thats their problem.

If people wern't willing to pay the high prices the touts wouldn't put them on sale for so much.
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Old 04-10-2011, 21:35
Ghost Misguided
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I hate touts, it's just conning more money from people at the end of the day. Any tickets I'd have, I'd sell them at the price they actually cost.
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Old 05-10-2011, 00:52
rawr
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On one hand, I dislike those who buy tickets just so they can sell them for a profit at the expense of fans.

On the other hand, I like the knowledge that if for some reason I can't get a ticket when they go on sale, if I'm willing to pay enough I can still definitely go to the gig. If they were all sold at cost price, it'd be so much harder to get into sold out gigs. That doesn't mean I like it though.
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Old 05-10-2011, 01:10
DrFlowDemand
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ticket touts disgust me
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Old 05-10-2011, 08:47
Glawster2002
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But they could still be music fans, it's a bit of a presumption to make.
I fail to see how someone who purchases tickets for a concert they have no intention of going to, but for the sole intention of trying to re-sell those tickets for a profit could ever be considered a music fan.

As for touts - they are scum.
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Old 05-10-2011, 13:10
BrunoStreete
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So the person who placed two tickets for Lady Antebellum at Union Chapel on Ebay for £135 at 9.10 last Wednesday,ten minutes after they'd gone on sale with a face value of £25,is clearly a fan then??
They might have bought 4 tickets instead of 2. They could still be a fan.
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Old 05-10-2011, 13:54
Nicola37
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Not all people who sell tickets on ebay are touts.

Some concert tickets go on sale months before the actually event. Circumstances change and you cant always go.

Its actually worse for comedy shows (yes I know this is the music forum) some of those go on sale over a year before the show.

I have sold tickets on ebay, however I normally start the auction at just below face value, if people choose to bid up the price thats their problem.

If people wern't willing to pay the high prices the touts wouldn't put them on sale for so much.


Totally agree with that, I was astonished at the prices One Direction tickets on Ebay went up for but even more shocked at the people READILY paying those prices or pushing an auction that started at about £60 for the pair, up to about £300!

As long as there are desperate people who would rather pay eye watering prices than risk not being there at all, touts will always thrive.

Of course there are genuine cases where fans can't go, the time between tickets on sale and the actual gigs themselves are in most cases getting longer, these people will generally sell their tickets at more or less face value or atleast start the auction at those prices, closer to the day.

It is also the case that sometimes fans buy too many tickets particularly if there is a pre sale, I know fans of a few artists who will buy tickets as soon as they are available in a pre sale for fear of not getting any at all (Say on a Wednesday) but then when general sale (Say Friday or Saturday) happens they try again for 'better' tickets and end up with duplicates, or a friend buys them at the same time and they end up with spares, that happens a lot.

But when someone is selling for example 2 One Direction tickets at a buy it now price as £549 and has countless listings for other shows, they can be classed as nothing more than a tout. I highly doubt they end up going to these shows themselves
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Old 05-10-2011, 18:13
BrunoStreete
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Unfortunately the ticket promotors and agencies don't care two hoots about touting and have done nothing to stop it whatsoever. Unless you count making some tickets non-transferable so like me you end up with 2 tickets to see Michael McIntyre in September next year that you're pretty sure you can't use and can't sell either.
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Old 05-10-2011, 20:24
Gneiss
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We have on a number of occasions had tickets left over and sold them on...

We ended up with more Robbie tickets that we wanted a few years back as we couldn't make one of the dates and bought too many for another.

We gave some away and sold some on e-Bay with a starting bid of £1. If people bid over face value, as they did, then that's their choice to do so.
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Old 05-10-2011, 20:26
orangerepeat
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It has gotten totally out of control and for the first time I'm really considering giving up live shows. It's a shame because I love live performances more than anything and have been going to concerts since I was a kid but the price gouging is just criminal right now.

And the big idea of the venues is to limit access to the cardholders who bought the tickets but that doesn't protect the people who are dropping serious amounts of cash on ebay and craigslist to buy tickets off touts and who end up losing their cash. No one seems to care from the artists all the way down to the ticket agencies because you can not tell me that no one notices a big show selling out in less than two minutes but then tickets miraculously showing up on auction sites and stubhub minutes later.

I had six more concerts that I was going to this year which is now down to five but after that I think I'm going to start staying home and listening to the cds more often unless it is just a really, really special artist.

Also I should add that I don't think anyone has a problem with people selling tickets when they legitimately can't make an event but there are scumbags who have made a career out of buying $50 tickets in bulk and listing them for $200 (or more) minutes later. And that is a practice that needs to be made illegal immediately.
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Old 05-10-2011, 20:38
PhilH36
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They might have bought 4 tickets instead of 2. They could still be a fan.
Any genuine fan who ended up with more tickets than they needed for whatever reason would sell them at face value.
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Old 05-10-2011, 22:12
Mo@reality
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I tried to get Coldplay tickets last month. Annoyingly, I managed to get 2 tickets on the presale for the high tier at the 02 which I hate, I was prepared to pay more for the lower tiers, but when I tried again I got nothing and then couldn't even get the high tier again.

I was online at 9.30 the following morning when the tickets went on sale and again I got nothing.

I think one way they could help us genuine fans get tickets is to stagger the release through the day. I know they might keep some back for closer to the time, but at least on the same day I can keep on trying. It's infuriating.
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Old 06-10-2011, 00:30
bbclassics
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I can't stand ticket touts.

Gutted for you OP I would love to see The Cure too, but if you're just going to get badly ripped off then it's not worth bothering with it.
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Old 06-10-2011, 00:40
KIIS102
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I'm disgusted with people who buy tickets off ebay for more than face value, what's wrong with them? No wonder touts keep doing it, it's an easy money maker. 'Fans' moan.....then pay, same with taxes and iPhones and whatever else, way of life. Just like everything else, if people stopped paying then it wouldn't happen
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Old 06-10-2011, 00:45
grahamzxy
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So the concert ticket you wanted 'sold out' within 5 minutes of being on sale? Oh really?

Unsurprisingly it never takes long for these tickets to appear on auction sites, et cetera.
Please share your thoughts and feelings on this subject.

My most recent disappointment was for The Cure and their upcoming Royal Albert Hall gig. As a fan for many years I feel that my days of attending gigs (of well established bands) could be coming to an end. There's expensive, there's extortionate and then there's taking the p*ss. Touts are not music fans and I'd like to see changes made to the way genuine tickets are sold.
If you register with websites such as seetickets or ticketline or ticketweb you will receive pre sale emails which guarantee you decent tickets at cost price - I get them daily and I can get row A tickets often. True fans seldom miss out - unless they umm and ahhh for hours before deciding to buy tickets.

The internet is your friend - you will never get through on phone lines and queuing is so 1990's
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Old 06-10-2011, 13:02
BrunoStreete
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Any genuine fan who ended up with more tickets than they needed for whatever reason would sell them at face value.
Where can they sell them and be sure that a tout doesn't buy them to resell?
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Old 06-10-2011, 13:03
BrunoStreete
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If you register with websites such as seetickets or ticketline or ticketweb you will receive pre sale emails which guarantee you decent tickets at cost price - I get them daily and I can get row A tickets often. True fans seldom miss out - unless they umm and ahhh for hours before deciding to buy tickets.

The internet is your friend - you will never get through on phone lines and queuing is so 1990's
Works for some shows but for many it won't. There was no presale for One Direction and I couldn't get anywhere near buying any when they went on sale.
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Old 06-10-2011, 13:08
Glawster2002
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If you register with websites such as seetickets or ticketline or ticketweb you will receive pre sale emails which guarantee you decent tickets at cost price - I get them daily and I can get row A tickets often. True fans seldom miss out - unless they umm and ahhh for hours before deciding to buy tickets.

The internet is your friend - you will never get through on phone lines and queuing is so 1990's
100% agree.

I get e-mails from all the major outlets with pre-sales notifications. Can't remember the last time I purchased tickets the day they officially went on sale.
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