For all music loves and esp. those who love to see live music there's a documentary on Ch4 tonight at 9pm on ticket touts and the selling of tickets above fave falue. Can't wait to see this unfold.

Viagogo even tried to get an injunction to stop the programme being shown!

Thanks for the heads up on this, I did get scammed about 4-5 years ago by a company headed by the infamous creep Michael Rangos.

I'm looking forward to it.

Hopefully it will make very difficult viewing for some within the industry and raise serious questions about what is going on.

I've got this set to record.

Depends what they show. Ticket touting is perfectly legal.

I did get the following e-mail from Seatwave yesterday

To All Seatwave Customers,

As you may be aware, this Thursday’s edition of Channel 4’s Dispatches is devoted to the ticketing industry (‘The Great Ticket Scandal’, 9pm). It is the second in their February series looking at the way event tickets and prices are managed by private companies.

The programme is almost certain to include some coverage of Seatwave. We know now that Dispatches sent in an undercover reporter some months ago, to pose as an employee and surreptitiously film and record how we do business ‘behind the scenes.’ As we’ve been told to expect by the programme producers, there will probably be a selection of Seatwave employees appearing on-screen and speaking – unfairly, and likely out of context, in my view – about the company.

For the record: Seatwave has done nothing wrong, and in no way do we accept that surreptitious filming was justified in the development of this programme. If they had asked us, we would have been happy to answer their questions. We’re aware of the concerns some people have about the secondary ticketing market in general, and as such, we take our reputation for transparency, protecting fans, and responsible business behaviour very seriously.

What we do as a business is pretty simple: Seatwave helps fans get better access to tickets in a safe, transparent way. Our mission is to ensure that people get to see their favourite band or sporting event – without ever having to venture into a car park with a wad of banknotes again.

From the outset, we set up guarantees to ensure that fans would get the tickets they paid for (TicketIntegrity™), and wouldn’t be out of pocket if an event they’d bought tickets for was cancelled (TicketCover™). With guarantees like these, we have consistently led the ticketing market towards more customer-friendly practices. Transparency and security were, and still are, our top priorities.

Anyone who wants to understand what Seatwave is really about, should read our manifesto.

We will be watching closely on the night of broadcast, and as a Seatwave customer we encourage you to do the same. I will likely be Tweeting on the night, and may even add a blog post to our site. Follow me at @SeatwaveJoe and I will tweet the link if that happens.

For now, we will wait for Thursday and watch the broadcast with great interest. Until then, I encourage you to share any thoughts or concerns, and ask me any questions you may have. Please email me at joe@seatwave.com and I will be happy to answer them.

All the best,

yah, grossly immoral and unethical but perfectly legal

I'll be watching.

On most tickets one of the conditions of sale is that it must not be resold for a profit. So in theory anyone who is offering to sell a ticket at above face value is breaking the terms of sale and should have the ticket confiscated. Unfortunately it is not possible to enforce at the moment but hopefully technology will allow that to happen in the future.

There will always be people who purchase tickets for an event who are unable to go and there has always been the bloke standing outside the venue with a couple of tickets for sale, however I do wonder how so many tickets for an event can suddenly appear on re-sale sites within minutes of an event selling out. To me these sites are merely facilitating the exploitation of fans

This sounds really interesting. I hope it has some effect on the extortionate prices that some touts charge. It may be perfectly legal but that doesn't make it right...

How is someone selling a ticket for a bit of profit unethical or immoral?

Yes, but it's still not illegal.

Depends what you define as a 'bit of profit', From the buyers point of view wanting to see there favorite artist etc, touts flogging tickets for double the face value or even more for a sold out tour is a real kick in the pants to a dedicated fan

There is always the theory as well that these companies are ran by concert promoters, who buy their own tickets and then flog them off.

Seatwave are obviously shitting themselves.

It is unethical when it seems like fans don't even get a shot at buying a lot of tickets. "Legitimate" re-sale sites and the likes of ebay have loads of tickets up literally as soon as the tickets go on sale. How do they manage that? I've seen numerous sales, where vast numbers of fans who are attempting to buy when the sale starts can't get tickets, yet they're already on sale for double the price elsewhere.

I've no problem with people making a profit selling their own tickets if they can't attend or whatever, but the amount of tickets that touts get hold of is ridiculous.

I think it's more about the amount of freebie tickets given out within the industry. Many of these are then sold straight onto the touts and prove a nice little earner. I was talking to someone once who worked in HMV head office and they could get me front 3 or 4 row tickets for most any major concert as long as I paid more than what their 'ticket reseller' would offer for them.

Starting now!

I'm more concerned about the transaction/booking/postage fees which regularly increase prices by up to 40%.

Last year I wanted to buy a day ticket to Reading Festival however what was initially about £80 increased to £95 with add ons.

I often feel like I cutting of my nose to spit my face but I just refuse to buy an ticket that has these ridiculous mark ups.

Conditions state must not be sold for profit.

When you buy the ticket you agree with the conditions in the contract of buying, therefore selling them for profit is a breach of contract.

So yes selling tickets for more than the face value is illegal.

Tickets for live events is a huge scam everyone knows about it the problem is absolutely nobody will do anything about it.

Most shameful of all is the artists who allow their fans to be ripped off. or maybe they are just happy taking the money by whatever means.

To be fair, artists have little say in what the ticket prices are.

It's not black and white though. What people on eBay could say is "I'm not selling them for profit, bidding started at 99p. I didn't make people bid £300" so I suppose they can get round like that.

As for Viagogo, well what it states on the back of tickets is put their by promoters who are breaking their own rules but they won't sue themselves. I'm quite surprised Viagogo/Seatwave are the ones getting blamed, personally I'm more angry at Promoters who are the biggest touts here

How come Seatwave and Viagogo and Getmein are allowed to carry on if it's illegal then?

It seems the justification they give for ripping off the fans in this systematic way, is that it prevents fans being ripped off by other means

Live Nation and the other promoters should be made to face the music over this greed. If it's not unlawful, it should be. In any case it is extremely dubious and unethical practice.

I think you will find breach of contract is illegal.


However by allowing the bids to rise above the face value of the ticket that argument becomes invalid.