Dispatches- The Great Ticket Scandal, C4 Thursday 9pm

[JBarbour]

Radiohead trying to reduce the secondary market activity, 3 UK shows announced and you are restricted to 2 tickets with photo ID and user credit card required at the venue to gain a wrist band and entry.

Edited March 6, 2012 by craigb

[edfirth]

Putting anything like that in place puts off a lot of touts though

[JBarbour]

Putting anything like that in place puts off a lot of touts though

[edfirth]

Fans are though, and they'd be put off buying in that kind of secondary market

[JBarbour]

Just trying to find ticket prices for Vodafone vip tomorrow and came across this in ticket terms and conditions.

15. You may not re-sell or transfer this Ticket if in Our reasonable opinion You are doing so in the course of business. We will consider that a Ticket has be re-sold or transferred in the course of business if it is sold for a profit (i.e. for higher than the face value of the Ticket plus the booking or handling fee). Any Ticket sold in the course of business will become voidable and We reserve the right to refuse admission to the holder of the Ticket or eject the holder from the Venue. 16. If You have obtained this Ticket in breach of these Terms and/or if You breach any of these Terms then it shall be void, and all rights conferred on You or evidenced by such Ticket shall be void. If You seek to gain entry to an Event using a void Ticket then we reserve the right to eject You from the Event and You may be liable to legal action for trespass. Void tickets are non refundable

Found it quite interesting considering live nation breaking their own t&c

[pablopablo]

There's no mention of viagogo on the new website?

[mrtourette]

There's no mention of viagogo on the new website?

[JBarbour]

On the official forums the admins recommending:

Buy from http://www.scarletmist.com - recently relaunched, fantastic ethical site

I think FR/LN will still use viagogo because they have a contract/agreement but doesn't that end this year?

Like people have already suggested they may keep it on the downlow

[mrtourette]

Yeah scarletmist has been mentioned on here a few times, it's a genuine fan-to-fan site but I don't think you get the guarantees of getting a ticket like you do with the other con-artists.

[JBarbour]

I've used the site twice. Had no problems however the tickets were not for a major festival/band and therefore not expensive. Its a similar risks to buying with someone with low feedback to ebay id imagine. Scarletmist should introduce a feedback system for sellers

[mrtourette]

Yeah I imagine that if you tread carefully then it wouldn't be a problem, but someone's bound to get caught by being stupid and then claim that "this wouldn't have happened with viagogo".

[eFestivals]

On the official forums the admins recommending:

Buy from http://www.scarletmist.com - recently relaunched, fantastic ethical site

I think FR/LN will still use viagogo because they have a contract/agreement but doesn't that end this year?

Like people have already suggested they may keep it on the downlow

Funnily enough, I've just had an email from Viagogo, begging for efesxtivals to give them promotion today by forming a partnership with them

Here is the reply I've just sent back....

So hello Peter, the latest in a long long of shiny-suited slimy scumbag touts to contact us from your offices. It can't be that great working there given just how many staff Viascumbags turn over.

We do not, and never will, deal with scumbag touts like yourself. You add nothing, you just leech off others.

Talking of which, tell your scumbag editorial team to stop ripping off our content for your scumbag website too.

Still, hopefully you're going to get hugely burnt again this year on these tickets. :-)

[Justiceforcedave]

I've used the site twice. Had no problems however the tickets were not for a major festival/band and therefore not expensive. Its a similar risks to buying with someone with low feedback to ebay id imagine. Scarletmist should introduce a feedback system for sellers

[Justiceforcedave]

Funnily enough, I've just had an email from Viagogo, begging for efesxtivals to give them promotion today by forming a partnership with them

Here is the reply I've just sent back....

[JBarbour]

Poor Peter. He's sacked later because he's got no leads haha

[JBarbour]

In theory a great idea, but seeing as how it's genuine fan to fan reselling I can't imagine there'd be many repeat sellers on there. I've only ever sold on tickets a couple of times, once on SM and once to one of my mates!

Edited March 12, 2012 by craigb

[jump]

This will no doubt be lost soon enough since it's announcement day but the House Of Commons is talking about this tomorrow.

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1048806&c=1

[Vieuphoria]

oh wow. That's really interesting.

I do remember something similar happening a few years back though. The government concluded that we live in a capitalist society and this was totally fine.

[jump]

oh wow. That's really interesting.

I do remember something similar happening a few years back though. The government concluded that we live in a capitalist society and this was totally fine.

[JBarbour]

What happened was they asked the tixs agents to self regulate to avoid ticketing touting and thus they decide to become touts themsleves was the solution.

[jump]

Melvin Benn has finally said something...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17340797

top UK festival boss says he's "disappointed" that the government isn't taking action over the resale of tickets for live music events, like it has for the London Olympics.

Reselling tickets for London 2012 outside of authorised resellers is illegal.

Melvin Benn said the decision not to regulate the resale market for music had "left the problem with us".

The government says it has no intention of regulating the websites.

'Touting problem'

Melvin Benn, who organises events such as the Reading and Leeds and Latitude festivals, told Newsbeat: "I do feel it's one rule for one thing and one rule for another.

"The Olympics did it the easy way. The just wrote a law and passed it. They've got that mechanic at hand to them.

Melvin Benn, Managing Director of Festival Republic

"I didn't think it was massively helpful to us. He [Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt] has left the problem with us really."

Benn, along with some music industry representatives, have campaigned for a 10% profit cap on the resale of tickets to avoid sellers charging fees way beyond the face value of a ticket.

A statement from the government given to Newsbeat said: "High prices charged by touts may irritate some people - but they have the option of walking away.

"We do sympathise with those fans who feel they are being priced out of certain events by secondary sellers and would like to see the introduction of tighter operating practices by primary ticket distributors.

"Unless there is a demonstrable market failure there is not a case for government action."

Benn, along with other music industry representatives, has met the Culture Secretary to discuss the issue.

The subject of reselling tickets and secondary ticketing websites has been a hot topic in the music industry in recent years.

Secondary ticketing website Viagogo recently defended the practice of gig promoters selling tickets on its website saying "we don't discriminate" about who sells tickets on the site.

Melvin Benn has criticised the lack of response from the government over, what he calls, the "rank profiteering" of touts online.

The secondary ticket market for live music events is currently unregulated.

Statement from government's department for culture, media and sport

Benn continued: "[it] disappoints me because it's the citizens of the country who get hurt by it. Business gets hurts by it.

"Very straight forwardly he [Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt] believes it's the industry's problem rather than a government problem."

There's expected to be a short debate about secondary ticketing at Westminster today.

'Photo' tickets

He said Hunt had recommended that promoters use the photo identification system used by events like Glastonbury and, more recently by bands such as Radiohead, to prevent tickets being resold.

It's a system Benn - along with other festival organisers - is reluctant to bring in because of its impact on "spontaneity".

"If that was the way forward why didn't the Olympics do it?" he said.

"Festivals are for young people - quite often the decision to go is spur of the moment," said Benn.

"To constantly be uploading photographs would be a discouragement and would damage the industry.

"It's a pretty low agenda. I guess with the economic woes in Greece, Spain and Portugal for instance, you can see why it isn't but it was for the Olympics and we're not considered to be important enough."

Unlike other sporting events and concerts, unlicensed reselling of Olympic tickets is illegal under Section 31 of the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006.

[eFestivals]

Melvin Benn has finally said something...

Melvin Benn said the decision not to regulate the resale market for music had "left the problem with us".

The government says it has no intention of regulating the websites.

The thing is, that's what the promoters love to say, but it's simply not true.

The govt said they'd look at introducing legislation if the promoters first introduced some simple things to limit the ability of touts to operate - and if they weren't effective enough the govt would then legislate.

The promoters refused to introduce those simple measures. Those measures might not have cracked the problem completely, but they would have certainly had a positive effect.

And along with this ... the promoters said they'd introduce those measures only AFTER govt legislation to outlaw touting (which would have meant that the promoters had no need to introduce those measures, which meant them saying they would do was a waste of oxygen).

And along with all that, the legislation they were demanding was not merely the banning the touting, it also included what can only be called market protection legislation - that gave only certain people the right to sell tickets. It would have meant that no new promoter could have entered the promotion game, and would have ringfenced the market for the current big operators. Any smaller operators would have to operate thru the big operators.

So I'm glad that the govt didn't fall for the attempts at blackmailing them into legislating. It would have created something far worse than touting.

As for the touting itself, if the likes of Melvin think that because there's no legislation that they should play the touting game, why are they ashamed to admit to playing the touting game? If their reasoning is all fair enough, what are they so scared of to cause them to do one thing but publicly say something different?

Either you think touting is fair enough for you to do it, or you're against touting. The promoters want it all ways, showing that there's no morality in the ways they operate but only greed.

[jump]

Radiohead have blasted the tix touting unlike Chris Martin/Coldplay.

[lharris92]

bumpang this:

on the post about reading sunday selling out someone asked how many tix went to viagogo and this was the reply:

edit: this was on facebook

Reading Festival ‎Simon Dmon Dickinson - There was a relationship with Viagogo, which has now ended. We don't recommend them, but nor will we dissuade people from using them.

12 minutes ago · Like · 1

Edited March 21, 2012 by lharris92

[kaosmark2]

bumpang this:

on the post about reading sunday selling out someone asked how many tix went to viagogo and this was the reply:

edit: this was on facebook

Reading Festival ‎Simon Dmon Dickinson - There was a relationship with Viagogo, which has now ended. We don't recommend them, but nor will we dissuade people from using them.

12 minutes ago · Like · 1