The problem is that those who may well be able to purchase a ticket for an event when they go on sale are unable to do so because the promoter is deliberately restricting the availability of tickets so they can increase their profits by hiving off a proportion of the best seats to a ticket re-seller.

I would ague that is working against the consumer's interest because consumers would assume they would be able to purchase those tickets when they go on sale for an event and such a practise would fall within the remit of Trading Standards to investigate.

Whilst it may be legal, if Trading Standards find they are operating against the public interest they have the power to put a stop to it.

If it was so legal and above board why wasn't it public knowledge a long time ago? Why did Viagogo go to court to prevent the programme being shown as late as last Thursday? After all, if they have nothing to hide they had no reason to go to court, did they?

I've been going to, on average, two or three gigs a month every month for the best part of the last 35 years and I've never had to buy a ticket from a tout or a ticket re-selling web site, so I've no vested interest in any of this, however it is about time what is, at best, sharp practise was revealed.

I've also no problem with re-selling web sites in principal, however what is promoted as a way of fans selling their unwanted tickets to other fans appears to be little more than a front for bleeding genuine fans dry.

I think the above is correct, the main gripe for me is Viagogo is not a fan to fan reselling site, but just trumped up ticket touts.

i think your problem is you have completely got the wrong end of the stick and really don't understand what's going on

the reason people can't get tickets to certain gigs is simply because more people want to buy tickets than there are tickets available. the promoter isn't with holding tickets, they are selling them to a ticket agency to put on sale and sell. the tickets are still on sale and available to the public to buy. there is nothing illegal in this

trading standards can only take action if a law is broken. no law is broken

it has been public knowledge for years, but companies don't want to advertise certain things as it can affect sales. if you listed everything you paid for in a month, from food to clothing to heating, taxes, etc, you could find aspects that those companies wouldn't want to disclose, such as profit markups on goods, investments in shares in companies you may not agree with. the way animals are treated before you eat them

it's for those reasons that the company wouldn't want a TV show to be broadcast that purposely sets out to critise what they do

if you don't use these agencies, why should you care what they do? would you prefer ticketmaster just sold tickets at a higher price from the outset?

I must admit that is not what I understood from the programme. From what I saw the promoters give secondary sites an allocation to sell on their behalf at inflated prices and take a large cut of the profit. The secondary site doesn't pay up front for these allocations so it's not selling tickets that it owns. I don't know how the law stands on this practice but it doesn't seem honest to me.

This is what happens I think it stinks.

in what way is it not honest?

the tickets are sold legally to another company to sell legally. if it was illegal the police would get involved

Evidently I don't have a problem because other people have exactly the same view of this as I do.

And to say Trading Standards can only take action if a law is broken isn't true. These companies are distorting the availability of tickets for financial gain to the disadvantage of the public and that is something Trading Standards can investigate.


I care because as a music fan I believe everyone should have an equal chance to attend a gig paying a fair price, rather than some losing out and being forced to offer an extortionate price on a re-sale site. But then only to lose because they are outbid by someone with a bigger bank balance for a ticket that was never available for them to buy in the first place.

If the promoters were forced to say something like "The first 20 rows are not available for this event" prior to the tickets going on sale I wonder how long it would be before that policy changed.

If that meant higher prices then I would accept that because at least everyone would be on a level playing field prior to the tickets going on sale, but as average ticket prices have gone up by over 30% since the turn of the century I think promoters would struggle to justify further increases, especially when gig sales start to fall.

This never happened before tickets were bought on line. People queued in the past and got the best tickets if they were at the front of the line.Isn't that only fair?

actually it did go on in those days too, just a bit differently

but you do have a problem with it. if other people have the same problem, it doesn't mean you don't have a problem, it means you have a shared problem

trading standards can investigate, but they can only take action if a law is broken. your interpretation of taking action may be different, and you may include the investigation as "taking action", but in real terms they can't do anything to change anything if laws aren't broken

regarding a fair price, what is a fair price? is it fair that the seats in the back rows are the same as the seats in the front rows?

seats in the front rows are more sought after, thus have a greater value. thus as with anything that holds greater value, they can be sold for a greater price, which is what happens

what your problem is that the best seats are sold at a higher price, based on their true worth, and you don't like the way this practise happens. if laws changed, all that would happen would be that there would be more tiers in ticket prices so the front row seats would be more transparent in pricing and would be offered at higher prices through more ticket sellers. thus the ticket prices would not go down, they would stay the same, or worse they would increase in price

so no matter how you look upon your problem, the resolve isn't going to be what you may hope it would turn out. the best tickets aren't going to be sold at the same prices as the further back seats as they hold a greater value. this practise is common through a number of different industries with the best things sold at a higher price. people are prepared to pay those prices, thus the situation we have

To a very very small degree I have seen 100's of acts over nearly 40 years if Led zeppelin tickets went on sale would would I get one I doubt it, but I did in the past..........first come first served, and if you were really desperate you could try and find a tout outside.

I have had front 3- 4 rows at Springsteen. The Who. Lynyrd Skynyrd. That would never happen now those tickets would go to corporate agencies or scum like Viagogo and the like. People like Michael Rangos would not be able to make a huge killing.

You suggested I had a problem understanding the situation. i don't i understand the situation perfectly, thank you very much but understanding the situation doesn't mean i have to accept it.


Trading Standards can investigate and can pass their findings on to the government for further investigation if they feel the public is getting a raw deal, that is part of their remit.


Could you please show me, in any of my posts, where I have stated this??????????

If you look at the seating plan for any theatre or venue, different seating locations are priced differently. I have never, ever, argued that is wrong!!!!!!!!!

What I am arguing is wrong is the keeping back of seats from general sale to facilitate those tickets being sold at a much great price than the face value. That is entirely different from what you say my "problem" is!

If a promoter to an event gives a face value of £40 for a front row ticket, that is what they should be made available at. If he perceives the "true" value is £400 then he should have the balls to price them at that level and not hide behind surreptitious means to obtain what he believes to be the "true" price.

i didn't suggest you had a problem because you didn't understand the problem. whilst you obviously don't understand the issue, your problem is the issue itself

this time around your statement about TS is correct. but as long as a company acts within the law, TS is powerless. as the company in question operates within the law, TS is powerless

the tickets are not kept back from general sale. they are on general sale, but sold through alternate ticket sellers as the promoter is legally within their rights to do so

regardless of what the "face value" of a ticket says, you don't have that ticket in your hand when you are buying it. so what difference does it make if the "face value" of a front row seat is £40 when it's on sale for £400?

i've explained why tickets are sold in such a way. i've explained what would happen if the law was changed to the way you describe, which is no change to the pricing of tickets, no change to availbility of tickets, and no change to your options to buy tickets

as the current practice is not illegal, it's not likely that any changes to the law will be forthcoming shortly, but if they did, it wouldn't help the situation in the slightest

It stinks that the government past and present wont do anything to stop ticket touting, and there us one easy way to do this, and its already being done

Every potential fan has to register with the ticket agency, giving them there name + adress and a recent photo

Now as I have said, this has already been done, and if you want a ticket for glastonbury, before buying ticket, be sure your able to go. If you notice on ebay, there are no tickets on sale for glastonbury, as it is impossible to resell them, or auction them of,; for one thing, the ticket has your picture on it, and personal information like name, and all of this must match up at glastonbury

Last yeae the mani street preachers played kings tut in glasgow, tickets sold out in seconds, and wasnt long till these were on ebay. One seller, had loads of other tickets for other events, and now he has a ticket for the msp, and he was selling them at £300 each, so 2 tickets = £600

Now I question how he got hold of these tickets, as it was impossible to get online to get any tickets, now I susspect he knows someoen in ticketmaster, and tickets are made availble to him

Idealy the government need to pass a new law, out lawing reselling of tickets, which should include ebay, and ticketmaster other site seatwave

I prefer the queuing system for tickets, if you were a fan, you would queue overnight, and at least you would know, hey I will get a ticket

Example, where I would have got a ticket, msp at king tuts, online ticket sold out in secs, and a good number on ebay

If you had to queue overnight, I would have atickets, and maybe these touts in eng would not get any tickets

Online sales makes it very profitable for ticket touts

it's the move from queing to online sales that's caused much of the shortages for tickets, as instead of local people going to local gigs as they have to line up for tickets at the venue, people from anywhere in the world can buy a ticket. so your market goes global for a local event

there's a simple solution to the issue described. don't buy a ticket if you think it's overpriced

What on earth is this supposed to mean?

I understand the issue perfectly, as I have already stated. I have also said that understanding the issue doesn't mean I have to like what is happening either.

You obviously have some vested interest in the status quo being maintained because you defend the barely defensible so strongly, but don't expect the average fan who misses out on seeing their favourite artist, but then sees a couple of thousand tickets appear on a re-sale site at 20 times their original face value within seconds of the event selling out to agree with you.

This is yet another example of Rip-off Britain at its finest.

you don't understand the issue. you don't even seem to understand that the practice is not illegal, thus nothing can be done about it

i have no vested interest in it at all. but i understand the situation, i understand the reasons for it, and i don't get worked up about it

if you don't want to pay the price to buy tickets, don't buy them, no-one is forcing you


there is a benefit of touts to real music fans however, in that if an event sells out, if you really want to go, you have options that wouldn't otherwise be available

Which tickets were sold at 20 times their face value?

You do understand that just because they are listed on there doesn't mean they will sell at that price?

but that law wouldn't solve the issue that this thread is discussing. in fact it would make things far better for companies like ticketmaster, and it would make things worse for fans

if a real fan buys 2 tickets for a gig, one for themselves and one for a friend so they don't go alone, or it could be a girlfriend, wife, etc, what happens if their friend/wife/etc can't make it or doesn't want to go? what happens if that person is sick or has to work or simply isn't phsyically available to attend - bear in mind that gigs are often sold months in advance, sometimes a year in advance. so if you can't resell the tickets that means either one ticket goes to waste and the fan is out of pocket, plus that's one less fan that loses the chance to attend the gig, or worse, two people not going to the gig as the fan doesn't want to go alone, especially not if the gig is in another city and/or they were hoping to get a lift or stay with someone they bought a ticket for

if you did buy 2 tickets, what would you enter as personal details for the other person? you could only really register one ticket, so the spare could be resold. you can't expect every individual to buy their own tickets and get seats all over the place

so that's not going to work

you could outlaw the reselling of tickets over face value, but that's not going to work either, and it will make the big companies even happier. what that would do is greatly reduce people selling tickets on ebay at over face value. it could mean people ending up with spares can still sell them though. now this plays into the hands of the real ticket touts who don't give a damn about the law. their practices have had a hammering due to the ease of ebay for any idiot to buy tickets and resell them for quick profit without moving off their arse. it would drive things back underground where fans will have less legal security and touts can drive prices further due to demand

what's even better is that the big companies can still continue to do what they do, as they are allocated seats and literally print the tickets upon sale, so the tickets have your name, seat and what you have paid for the ticket on them. so they can offer £40 seats at £500, sell you them for £500 and print £500 on the ticket, so the face value of the ticket is £500. as the big companies competitors in that market would be wiped out (ie. ebay/gumtree), there would be more business going their way as the only legal option of getting tickets over the internet in advance for a gig that is sold out (apart from the unlikely chance of getting a ticket at normal price from ebay from someone selling at what they paid for it as they had a spare - which would be less likely if the law changed)

thus at the moment the companies aren't doing anything illegally. there is no call to change the law, and any change in the law won't help fans in the slightest, but would help the very companies that operate in this manner

Sigh.


As I have already stated on numerous occasions, and I am beginning to wonder who doesn't actually understand here, I will state again for the record:

I understand the issue and I understand that the practice is not illegal.

There, is that clear enough for you?

However as I have also said, many times, even though the practice is perfectly legal, there I've said it again for you, it doesn't mean to say I, or anyone else, have to accept it as right.


Ohhh... I've misunderstood.....

So in reality having a venue with a capacity of 10,000 and only putting 8,000 tickets on sale, when there are 10,000 fans who wish to attend, but giving the 2,000 people who missed out the opportunity to purchase those tickets at a potentially vastly inflated price is a benefit to those fans.....

Fortunately, though, there is light at the end of this particularly dark and dismal tunnel...

Radiohead link up with 'ethical' ticket exchange

and if you visit the Ticket Trust web page:

The second person on this thread who believes that because I fundamentally disagree with a promoter and ticket re-seller colluding to deliberately restrict the initial sale of tickets to an event in order to artificially create a demand for tickets on the re-sale web site to potentially increase prices on that re-sale web site, that I must be lacking in the brain cell department.

I could ask even more legitimately... Do you understand the sentence I wrote?


Where, precisely, in that sentence do I say sold for 20 times their face value? I make no reference anywhere to tickets being sold at 20 times their original face value and yes I do understand how an auction works, whether it is for a concert ticket or anything else. Auctions have been around a good deal longer than the internet you know.