I don’t really go and watch mega bands at big venues any more, haven’t done for years, preferring to go to smaller venues with a handful to a few hundred people.

But how does it work when tickets appear to sell out through official channels in a matter of a couple of minutes only to reappear a few minutes later on places like Stubhub at inflated prices? Is there some kind of automated buying going on?

Some of the main sellers also own a ‘reseller’

And there are people who buy tickets to sell on

Both scum

I;ve just seen may mate on facebook complaining about the same – tickets for fleetwood mac sold out in seconds and are already on ebay for £500

Yep – that’s pretty much it, vast quantities of the available tickets (many in the better areas) are never released to the public at face value but instead sold as “premium” seats through the same official channels that handle the “normal” tickets – Ticketmaster “platinum” is one such example, then there are other resellers that handle big quantities of tickets for all kinds of gigs & get a guaranteed cut of the more popular events which they obviously hump up the price of considerably… that’s even before you get to “tout level” with folk setting up multiple accounts on multiple windows & mashing refresh furiously like everyone else! It’s a pretty shite state of affairs in general & puts me off even considering going to many gigs in the first place.

One point of note however, with the general increase in face value on tickets – there’s often a ton of tickets left unsold nearer the date as greedy bastards try & triple their money on average seats. If there’s anything you really want to see, set up a stubhub alert – sometimes ordinary folk genuinely can’t make it & advertise the tickets for reasonable prices just to get their money back…

I watch bands regularly, relatively easy getting tix for some of the smaller heavy metal bands that play manchester uni, but like yourself you need to be online at 9am for bands like slipknot and the foo fighters.

Even gone to the extent of changing the mobile contract to o2 for the likes of a presale.

Upsets me to see them being sold on fleabay and these getmein sites by the touts, becareful thou as you wont get your tix until the day of the gig, or may have someones name printed on it, them you produce id at the arena, may even be a photocopy.

nbt – report the ebay ads & they’ll be removed, they don’t allow selling tickets anymore, hence they started stubhub (anything to make it harder for them…)

or go and see the same tour in Europe, mix it with a city break and pay less than half what you do here for a ticket

Unfortunately, it is down to supply and demand. If nobody bought tickets from these butt wipes, then it wouldn’t happen. However there are enough numpties out there who don’t mind paying up so they can announce to their mates on facebook/down the golf club that they are cool.*

Probably the same bell ends who talk constantly at the top of their voice during the gig and film the thing on a ipad **

Not only does it cost the average fan out of going to a gig, it kills the atmosphere when you do go because the ‘genuine fans’ of the band couldn’t get tickets.

It’s a cack situation f’sure 🙁

* I might be over generalising here
** and here

I’ve had the same situation waiting for tickets to go live on Ticketmaster and within 2 minutes sold out even though I picked the seats and was going through card payment details within the first minute. Only to find the same seat tickets then available on Get Me In (subsidiary of Ticketmaster) at 3x the face value.

Laws should be brought in to prevent them doing this within the first week of tickets being available as they have a monopoly on their distribution.

Or just head down to the gig without a ticket and buy off an old school tout – I’ve rarely paid much more than face value when paying on walk up so to speak.

@twickets on Twitter is a good place to source tickets from, they will only publish tickets that are being sold for face value or less.

nbt – Member
I;ve just seen may mate on facebook complaining about the same – tickets for fleetwood mac sold out in seconds and are already on ebay for £500

He had a lucky escape, we saw them at the MEN last year and they were dreadful.

Fleetwodd Mac have announced some extra dates FYI

I hate these ticket companies buying up and re-offering at higher prices. I would support a law to prevent it.

http://scarletmist.com/ is a good site for getting tickets for sold-out stuff. It’s very ‘anti-tout’. They let a limited number of people sign-up for alerts for a particular gig, so you get an email when somebody puts one up for sale. I’ve bought/sold tickets on there a number of times without any hassle.

Fleetwodd Mac have announced some extra dates FYI

Cheers for the heads up on that – I think… oh well, at least the missus is happy about the state of my bank balance 😐

J

I hate these ticket companies buying up and re-offering at higher prices. I would support a law to prevent it.

Whaaat? Are you some kind of bleeding heart pinko communist or something??? The market is king, its the right way. Fleecing the punter for ask mush as you can is the western way

Here actually demonstrates the benefit of being a musical snob (and detesting artists once they become famous) the people I like, well, there’s always tickets available…

I wonder if the touts have ever considered diversifying.
HONC, Mayhem and Strathpuffer all sell out within hours. 😉

Not only does it cost the average fan out of going to a gig, it kills the atmosphere when you do go because the ‘genuine fans’ of the band couldn’t get tickets.

I dunno, is a gig really better if filled with poor people?

Do poor people enjoy music more than the rich?

So what if some guy’s paid massively over the odds for a ticket. The average fan (possibly) had the same chance as the tout of getting the ticket, the rich guy just avoied spending minutes/hours of his life mashing F5.