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Yesterday I got email notification from ticketmaster to say that AC/DC were touring and tickets were going to go on sale at 10am the next morning. I was pretty excited abut this never having seen them before, but unfortunately I wasn't going to available at that time and therefore would have to purchase them in the afternoon. I arrived back home at 3.30pm and immediately went online to order my tickets. I had originally intended buy four concert tickets, two for myself and my partner, plus another couple of tickets for two tickets for a couple of friends who also wanted to come along.
So I proceeded to go through with the purchase and finally ended up on a page with the message "sorry, no exact matches were found, but other tickets may still be available." It suggested either I search again or keep checking back. So I went back and started the whole process again and ended up with the same message. I decided to give ticketmaster a call and when I eventually managed to get through to a human being (don't you love these automated switchboards!), he told me that the tickets for the AC/DC concert had sold out within the first half hour. As you can imagine I was a bit upset because I was really looking forward to seeing them.
Ticket touts - buying up tickets just to sell them on at a massive profit...
I gave up and went back into my email and discovered that I had received an email from Seatwave at 10.35 titled "Don't miss AC/DC..." I opened it up and there was the option to buy or sell AC/DC tickets. Right, I thought to myself, maybe I can get hold of some tickets this way. Well I nearly fell over when I discovered that there were a minimum of 200 tickets being sold on Seatwave and they were going from anything between £150 and £200 per ticket, unbelievable when you consider that the original sale price was £40!
I then decided to check eBay and discovered a seller who was selling 20 tickets with a buy it now price of £147. By the way, I've just checked that seller again and 6 people have already bought tickets with a £100 markup. Which is incredible when you think that the tickets won't be sent out until a couple of weeks before the event.
What makes me so angry is that there are people out there buying up tickets just to sell them on at a massive profit. Ticket touts, they're not music fans and they are ruining it for people who enjoy music and would love to go and see a particular band live. They are the sort of people who probably don't even have a proper job and they obviously have no problem taking advantage of honest hard working people. People, who will probably end up seriously out of pocket because of greedy ticket touts!
What is the matter with this country? It seems that there are lots of people out there just waiting to get one over on their fellow man just to make some money. Needless to say I will not be paying these extortionate prices for a ticket and I am very upset that I will have to miss this concert.
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I know a ticket tout who openly admits to dodgy practices, ie removing "restricted view" from tickets and selling them at full price. They don't care about people only lining their own pockets. They don't want to do a proper job when they can get away with ripping people off, there should be somewhere to report them and get touting closed down for good!!
This is the problem, not ordinary "capitalism"; which could be addressed at a stroke, by introducing a law making it illegal to sell on a ticket for more than a small percentage above it's face value.
You have the same chance as anyone else to buy them, so no point whining.
Even the ticket providers now have 'touting' sites.
If you dont like capitalism, cause thats all this is, then use your vote and change the system.
It's just not fair, fans like myself can't get gig tickets because of this. In my case, the current issue is The View, in Glasgow. Tickets that originally would have cost £12.50 are now selling at nearly £50. I am a student and I don't have a spare £50 lying around. I tried so hard to get some, but just couldn't.
I am so mad, I think I'll go and eat ice! Why!?!?!?
Just more reason to despise and shun ticket touts.
"People who queue or pay touts ......are completely nuts. when you get there, there will really be nothing to enjoy. Think of all the filthy sweating bodies.
Scrummage 21-Jun-2009 15:37"
Exactly!
I do have 4 tickets for this - really and truly a genuine reason for not being able to go! My partner is still going (boo).
Alos, I was at Take That on Sat - they were only selling drinks at the bar if you q'd up to get tokens 1st and then went to the bar - and it closed at 10pm!!! and NO REFUNDS!!! I was in the Q when it closed - TOUGH.... be warned
They were £55 each = booking fee so if anyone wants one mail me
helent@vebnet.com
Firstly, we should pressure bands to insist that their tickets are not sold on the internet. In the 'old days', tickets were sold AT THE VENUE for some time before the gig or by postal application for those who lived further away. For the big gigs, we all queued - for hours sometimes - to secure our 'gold dust' tickets. This had two happy effects - generally, only those that really wanted to see the act would put in the effort, and also, anyone presenting themselves in front of the HUMAN box office attendant asking for 20 or 50 tickets would be refused. In those days, I don't remember anyone not getting to see their favourite artists and the big gigs were all still full.
Secondly, TicketMaster THEMSELVES now participate in what I consider 'touting'. Just a few minutes after the start time for the sale of tickets for the biggest acts, tickets are 'unavailable' and you are redirected to 'our partner company who may be able to help'. Said 'partner company' will miraculous have large numbers of tickets for sale at a huge mark-up. This is obviously legal or they wouldn't be doing it in such an open way, but it's an appallingly blatant exploitation of people who can't simply stop work to sit on their company's phone for an hour to get tickets, which let's face it, is a lot of us.
AC/DC make a great deal out of being 'a fan's band'. It's about time that they and other similarly popular acts start acting like it and not simply taking the easiest route to monstrous ticket sales. Just because they don't make money from the touting mark-up doesn't mean they shouldn't take action for the fans they profess to care so much about.
HappyTicket
However it’s a risk and sometime I lose but not too often.
Therefore long may it continue, I have started to train my kids in how to do it so hopefully they too can make a career from it.
Happy….