MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Argh! Wasn't able to get online until midday and all the tickets had sold out already for the big outdoor Massive Attack gig in September. It's the 40th b'day of a good mate that weekend, so was hoping to get us some tickets to see one of our favourite bands from bitd 🙁
Already there are tickets on various sites for £100-200. Asshats. Come the revolution and all that!
Getmein and the likes are owned by the big ticket sellers, the whole system is broken. I tend to avoid big sellers these days as it's such a pain in the butt.
It was pretty easy to get tickets. Much easier than Banksy at the Tropicana. My wife and I both went online at 9 hoping one might get on but in the end we both got straight in. Even after completing the transaction it was easy enough to get back in if we wanted more (maybe we should've if they are going for £100-200 😈 ). If you couldn't get online surely the touts are offering you a service 🙂
agree with the OP, although in this day and age waiting 3 hours to buy a ticket is asking for it.
Last year i was trying to get Faith No More tix - I was hammering the Refresh button from 8.59am with phone and computer, they went on sale at 9, and at 9:00:01 it said 'sold out'.
And by 9:01am there were plenty of tickets on the touting sites for several hundred quid. Absolute racket.
Given the speed at which gigs sellout and the tickets are up for resale its difficult to understand how that can happen without the collusion of the promoters, ticket sellers and touts
A good article from the Guardian a few days ago on this very subject
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/may/15/shady-world-of-the-ticket-touts
This won't stop till there is proper vetting, eg the credit card you used for the purchase or your passport is required as verification at the venue.
agree with the OP, although in this day and age waiting 3 hours to buy a ticket is asking for it.
Well I start work at 8.30, and as a teacher there's no way I can be sitting on my laptop during a lesson! First chance I had they were already gone.
OP, if it's any consolation went to see them in Birmingham last January
more a massive disappointment than massive attack.
If you couldn't get online surely the touts are offering you a service
Not a tout by any chance?
The best way around this is the one that some agencies and venues now operate; the buyer's name is printed on the ticket, and valid ID has to be shown at the door that corresponds to the name on the ticket. Any other tickets bought at the time, and held by other people, have to accompany the primary buyer on entrance.
This policy was used by Kate Bush and Eventime Apollo, and worked very well, the other two tickets I bought for friends meant both had to be with me, and as one person lived in Stafford she had to bring her kids down so they could stay overnight with her folks.
A bit inconvenient, but it makes life almost impossible for the touts.
Forcing the likes of Ticketmaster to sell off their legalised [s]touting[/s] reselling businesses would help remove the suspicion that they're passing on tickets directly and raking in huge amounts by effectively being their own touts, and independent oversight would help even more.
I refuse to be shafted by touts, I've only bought a ticket from a tout once, and he wasn't a tout as such, he'd bought an extra ticket for Yes at Bristol Hippodrome on spec, and was offering it at just over face value, I paid £3.50 for a £2.50 ticket, and the people around me in the queue jeered a bit when I bought it; five minutes later, while still about a hundred feet from the box office entrance they put out the 'Closed, Sold out' signs.
I walked away with a smug smile while everyone else walked off looking more than a little glum!
The sort of prices being asked now though are outrageous, hundreds of pounds over an already expensive ticket, which, while it may be seen as fulfilling a demand, is immoral.
andylaightscat - Member
OP, if it's any consolation went to see them in Birmingham last January
more a massive disappointment than massive attack.
This.
I reckon they just can't be arsed anymore. Saw them at Birmingham a loooong time ago and it was fantastic, an amazing atmosphere.
Saw them at Brixton a few years back, utterly dire. Zero interest in being there. Friend saw them at Brixton a few weeks back and said the same.
Arrogant and boring.
[i]
I reckon they just can't be arsed anymore[/i]
Bollocks!
I saw em a few months ago and they were brilliant. AND I'M BLOODY FUSSY! Especially when it comes to bands who have been around for while (eg. Underworld, one of my all-time top bands were absolutely shite).
Bands have good days and bad days, everyone knows that.
I was disappointed my Massive Attack in Leicester recently. Musically it was tight but there was no connection between the band and the crowd. I think three new and unknown tracks to start didn't help. Shame as when I saw them in Bristol many years ago they were amazing.
I don't have as much of an issue with a genuine tout but getmein and the like are pure racketeering. I remember a Biffy interview a while back where they said that 40% of the tickets to one of their shows never went on public sale, they went directly to the faux-touts.