Why haven't the big companies been sued then?

Sued by who?

One of the staff from viagogo said that the artists doesn't know anything about it, it's all the promoters.

The promotors and the venues who insist on the terms. If it is illegal to resell tickets why are Ebay and the other firms happily going about it?

Surely artists will have SOME idea what goes on!

A few years back if I remember, Miley Cyrus went on tour and she did a thing that reduced ticket touts? I think she only did them e-tickets

All tickets for the Wonder World Tour were sold exclusively through paperless ticket delivery, meaning that fans did not receive a physical concert ticket for their entry into the event.[11] Ticket buyers were required to bring the credit card used to make the purchase and photo identification to the concert venue in order to gain entry. All groups were to enter the concert together, and ushers issued seat locator slips.[8] The method of ticket sales was relatively new at the time, although Ticketmaster first experimented it with AC/DC's Black Ice World Tour (2008–10). However, it marked the first time for an arena tour to sell all tickets through paperless ticketing.[12] This was done in response to the extensive ticket scalping that occurred during the Best of Both Worlds Tour and in order to give fans the opportunity to purchase good tickets at face value.

Unfortunately that system means that if you buy tickets and then cannot attend you are stuffed.

They are hardly going to be sued by the promoters are they?

They paid the promoters for the tickets, which the promoters were well aware of, and the venues wouldn't care either way.

Ebay don't do it.

Viagogo paid the promoters more than the face value for the tickets, so they made more money than they would have, they then instantly put them on their site for more than double the value.

So who is going to sue who?

Certainly not the promoters who made more money than they would have.

Ebay permit people to sell tickets and no-one sues them. Why?

because it's not illegal to sell concert tickets

what is illegal is street trading without a permit, so you can be arrested for selling tickets outside a gig. and that's what the o2 does to stop touts. they own the land outside the venue so can "police" it

if laws were passed to stop the activities mentioned in the show (which i haven't seen), it wouldn't stop high ticket prices. promotors would simply make it more transparent that if you want front row seats you have to pay £200-£100 for them at a popular gig. real touts would then flourish as they wouldn't have legal competition to the illegal businesses they operate. so no-one really wins

They haven't been sued because they are in cahoots with each other.

The Promoters should be preventing sites like Viagogo from selling tickets at above the advertised price however if the Promoters are supplying tickets to re-sell sites where they know they are very likely to be sold well above face value, as Dispatches suggests, they are hardly in a position to sue, are they?

Bring in a law that states no ticket to be sold for more than face value.

Not rocket science is it ??

They aren't in cahoots with Ebay though as I have stated several times.

My whole point is that it's not illegal.

That's what some MP on the programme tried to get done, but it just got rejected. there was also an undercover person who asked the head of Viagogo if he thinks the law will ever be passed to which he joked that it'll never be passed, it's been tried hundreds of times etc.

it's an absolute joke really, i've bought tickets before for 3x the asking price because i was so desperate to go, but after watching this documentary I'd rather not.
An absolute shambles, day light robbery.

which is exactly what i was saying

if you made it illegal to sell tickets at higher than face value, the ticket prices would simply go up for the better seats at least

you may even have more ticket "sales" where tickets are sold at reduced prices or BOGOF deals when they can't shift them because they started off at too high a price. many an o2 show has sold cheap tickets a day or two before the event

it's just that promotors like to operate in this way as it makes artists look better by officially not charging more for the front row seats than the 10th row seats

And precisely where in my reply did i mention Ebay?

I am talking specifically about re-sale web sites and Promoters providing them with tickets knowing they have deliberately created a shortage and then earn revenue on that shortfall as they know those tickets are likely to sell for way beyond the face value.

I would have thought such practice could well be construed as fraud, because those who purchase those tickets from the reseller are led to believe they are purchasing "fan-to-fan" when that isn't the case.

And that makes it right, then?

After all it is perfectly "legal" for a 14-year old to take a bottle of gin out of their parents drinks cabinet, drink the whole lot and end up in hospital having their stomach pumped out, but that doesn't make it OK for that 14-year old to do it.

As for the programme itself, I am sure both the Police and Trading Standards will be investigating what was shown and it wouldn't surprise me if some of the things reported in the programme are, in fact, illegal.

Yes, it's legal so perfectly ok. Same as buying nearly anything and selling it for more than you paid is legal.

what they do isn't illegal and it isn't fraud. what people think they do is irrelevant. who really cares where the tickets originated from, rather than the price they are being sold at

a promoters job is to pay an artist, hire a venue, advertise the event and organise everything, and sell tickets to cover the costs and make a profit

it's the promoters who choose how they want to sell tickets. it's the promotors who choose to sell chunks of tickets wholesale before they go on general sale. it's promotors who prefer to keep a lower face value price on a ticket when they know they could sell the best seats at many times higher, and choose to sell those best seats via specific methods to gain the money they really want for those seats

it's not illegal. whether you think it's immoral is a matter of opinion. why do they do this instead of just making front row seats £1000, second row seats £500, etc? because the artists don't want to appear to be screwing fans over with high ticket prices. so they turn a blind eye to these practices. artists would prefer tickets are sold this way so they can say all tickets are only £30, and they aren't ripping fans off with £250 tickets

the end result is that people who want to pay those prices get those tickets, the promoters get the money they want, and the artist gets what they want. if you don't want to spend the money, you don't get to go to the gig. if you have the money, want to go to the gig and willing to spend the money, you get the ticket

it could be done with more transparency with tickets reflecting the truer value, but then people will complain ticket prices are too high, and the artists will get flack for it

so there aren't really any solutions to this issue (which is a very different one to your usual scalpers and ebay touts) that will keep fans happy

If you believe the example I gave is acceptable then I really hope you never have kids....

Of course there are things that could be done, but whilst this nice cosy cartel exists no-one in the industry is going to do anything about it unless they are forced to.

For example:
[LIST=1][*]The ticker re-seller should be made to show the true source of the ticket, whether from a fan or the Promoter.[*]It should be made illegal, if it isn't already, for the ticketre-seller to bid against the purchaser to artificially raise the price of the ticket.[*]It should be a legal requirement for the Promoter to say exactly how many of the tickets are on sale to the public and how many are going to the re-sale industry.[*]The Promoters should enforce their own T&Cs about not really-selling the ticket for profit.[/LIST]
When you look at the huge profits the major tours generate, this isn't about a poor Promoter struggling to cover his costs at all, it's about sheer greed.

what difference does it make where the ticket sellers get their tickets? who cares about that when they buy a ticket? it would have absolutely no bearing on price

shill bidding is already illegal and isn't allowed on ebay. so that doesn't work either

the promoters T&C's can say what they want and they can sell to who they want

so none of those ideas would have the slightest bit of difference

it's a promoters job to make a profit, as with any business. they have a responsibility to shareholders to do so. they aren't charities. as long as they act within the law, what's the problem?

What? What the hell has me having kids got to do with it?