must-watch TV – the Great Ticket Scandal (C4, 9pm tonight)

Tonight's Dispatches programme on Channel 4 at 9am – subtitled "The Great Ticket Scandal" is must-watch TV for anyone who ever buys a festival or gig ticket.

The pre-publicity for the programme says "Dispatches sent reporters undercover inside two major 'fan-to-fan' ticket exchange websites to investigate who is selling via their websites and why so many tickets appear at over the face value so soon after the box office sells out."

Yesterday, one of the major secondary ticketing scumbag tout websites - Viagogo - attempted to get an injunction to stop the programme being broadcast, which strongly suggests that it will reveal operating practices that they would rather remain hidden.

The court declined to grant the injunction and the programme will be broadcast on Channel 4 tonight at 9pm.

This article is eFestivals opinion, rather than news.

Rumours are already circulating online that a number of major festival and gig promoters will be named and shamed within the programme.

These rumours – which we cannot verify as accurate - allege that promoters have directly supplied tens of thousands of tickets to these secondary outlet online scumbag touts, including for V Festival, Coldplay, Take That, Rhianna, Westlife, X-Factor and more, leading to fewer tickets available at face value for genuine buyers, bigger profits for these promoters, and people having to pay wildly inflated prices if they want to attend these shows.

We understand that there is no indication that the acts involved were aware of these allegations.

Viagogo is an official partner to the Reading and Leeds festivals. We have no information as to whether Reading and Leeds tickets might have been supplied directly to the organised online scumbag touts.

eFestivals has always been against touting on all forms. Unlike most other festival and music websites we have always refused to deal with them, and have rebuffed all of the numerous approaches we have had from these companies. We always state in our replies to them that just because a scumbag tout puts on a shiny suit to give the impression of respectability they are still a scumbag tout.

We recommend that you watch this programme tonight and make up your own minds about how these online scumbag touts and the promoters might have been operating.

If the actions of these companies offend you, complain to them as well as to your favourite bands who may have been the victims of these underhand practices.

To sell spare tickets away from these scumbag touts we recommend that you use the face-value resale website Scarlet Mist.

This article is an eFestivals opinion, rather than news.

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