posted Jun 27, 2007

If the ticket companies, entertainers, promoters, whoever, are worried about the rise of ebay, and sales of tickets on that, why don't they just auction all of their tickets in teh first place-that way the market sets the price, and touts won't be able to make money out of it

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Great shout !

The free market strikes back

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posted Jun 27, 2007

Its all well and good saying "Return It" but the simple fact is that alot of places don't offer such a service and when they do they often charge what ends up being a fairly hefty admin charge or requiring the ticket to be returned well in advance of the event.

People shouldn't have to lose money on tickets they cant use, people shouldnt be made to pay a admin fee on tickets they cant use which the event will then resell and people shouldnt be forced to return the tickets weeks or months before the event to get a refund when they can sell them in the a matter of days

And why is it like this/ Simply because the venues hosting events are solely bothered about profit and not their customers needs. They don't care if suddenly you cant use a ticket you bought months before as they have their money. They hate the touts and fans selling surplus tickets because it means that the profit isnt just being made by them anymore

Also lets be honest as well, its not the touts that stop people getting tickets for events. Even without touts the majority of fans who wanted tickets would still miss out as so few are released to general sale so only the few who could be online, on the phone or queued up at the box office the minute they go on sale would get them with the rest going to the corporate sponsors. Just look at the FA Cup final for example, about half the tickets went to corporate sponsors. Yes corporate sponsors require some tickets but around 40k of them, i think not.

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posted Jun 27, 2007

You're a buffoon Empedocles. When you buy a car etc you don't buy it with the express purpose of selling it on immediately at a riduculously inflated price after never using it do you? And sometimes supersi50 an event can be so popular, like a Status Quo concert, that tickets sell out immediately online, thus making it impossible to buy one. So when one finds out that said tickets are being bought and sold by non-fans one can imagine that one would be a little peeved. Ticket touts are the scum of the earth and must be banished!

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posted Jun 27, 2007

"Please can somebody explain why people are allowed to sell Wimbledon tickets on e-bay at a vast profit. Their excuse ... unable to make it for work/family reasons. Well why not just let Wimbledon know and they will refund your money and sell the tickets for you. Or at worst why not sell them to a friend at face value.
It is totally wrong that people are allowed to buy tickets and then auction them for their own gain"

Having administered the ticket allocation for my tennis club, I can tell you that the Terms and Conditions for the purchase of Wimbledon tickets expressly forbid their resale.

I don't know if the AELTC enforce these T's & C's, but the threat of non-admittance and legal action against anyone trying to enter Wimbledon with a "second-hand" ticket is clear enough.

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posted Jun 27, 2007

every year i go to loads of festivals, concerts and footy matches but most of the time i cant get through to the phone lines to get my tickets.

They're constantly engaged and by the time i do get through i'm told they're sold out. For example, with Glastonbury this year me and 7 friends tried constantly to get through for over 3 hours. Between us we had 8 mobiles, 1 bband connection and a landline and not 1 of us got through. now with glastonbury this year they were impossible to tout because all the tickets had photos on, but to be honest if it was possible and a tout asked for double/triple the face value i would have paid it because i wanted to go so badly.

Basically, a lot of the time the only way i'm able to get tickets is through touts... yes, i end up paying over the odds but to be honest with you i'm ok with doing so because if it wasnt for touts i wouldn't be able to go to most of the events i would like to.

even if you stop the touts i still think it would be impossible to get through on the phone lines and the websites would still crash so i would just end up not being able to go at all.

Most people i speak to at events that have bought tickets from touts, although they're not happy with paying over the odds they dont mind too much because at least they're at the event.

If you dont want to line a tout's pockets simply dont go, but if i'm ok with paying more for a ticket because i want to go that much then surely that's my choice??!

without the touts i would be lost!

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posted Jun 27, 2007

My issue is that this vast profit means that the even greater scourge of fraudulent tickets arises as you are able to purchase them through a non official source. Nobody should lose money on their purchase if sensibly possible.

The free market is a fair anjust way to allocate and official sources auctioning them may well result in the highest possible profit for the organisers of events, but it would also result in economic exclusivity at events and cause social unrest if it were applied to all ticketed events. Imagine if only the 400,000 wealthiest got to go to Glastonbury, the 10,000 wealthiest gigs at the Wembley Arena and God Forbid the 80,000 wealthiest to England matches. Havoc.

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posted Jun 27, 2007

The analogy of buying a car is quite accurate. The waiting list for some prestige cars is so long that some people will sell their place on the waiting list at a premium to others who are more desperate.
The reason it is illegal to sell tickets on to other people is nothing to do with preventing touts, it's to maintain the segregation of fans. For no other sport do spectators need to be kept apart.

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posted Jun 30, 2007

i don't see the problem with selling on anything one has purchased with their own funds. why should tickets be any different from say a house/computer/car etc.

BigGut said
"but it would also result in economic exclusivity at events and cause social unrest if it were applied to all ticketed events. Imagine if only the 400,000 wealthiest got to go to Glastonbury, the 10,000 wealthiest gigs at the Wembley Arena and God Forbid the 80,000 wealthiest to England matches"

you are assuming that 80,000 wealthiest like football - not sure its quite that simple!

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posted May 22, 2008

Imagine if only the 400,000 wealthiest got to go to Glastonbury, the 10,000 wealthiest gigs at the Wembley Arena and God Forbid the 80,000 wealthiest to England matches.

Imagine if the wealthiest 5% of people in on this planet owned and controlled 95% of the wealth and resources. You don't need to imagine, they do.

A ticket is no different than any other asset. Nobody needs to go to a gig or a sporting event whether a "fan" or not.

Houses sell for free-market prices and yet those ARE a necessity. You need somewhere to live.

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posted Jul 1, 2008

I was lucky enough to get two tickets to last years mens quarter final, by default due to the rain. My friend couldn't make it so I handed the ticket straight back to the Wimbledon officials. I sat there the entire time with an empty seat next to me because they had not bothered to scan it back in for resale. All their resales I understand go to charity. Had I known no one would benfit from a complete days play (ticket was handed back about 10.00 as play started at 11.00 last year)I would have sold it and let someone who really wanted to go enjoy themselves. People should be allowed to choose if they wish to sell their tickets not told by a nanny state what is allowed and what is not. I'm over 18, can and do vote, work, own my home, pay taxes, haven't broken the law, but might if I decide to sell an item that belongs to me. Remind me again why this should be a crime.

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