Pre Sale Tickets - Is it a total and utter front

4114Effects

FreddieVanHalen said:

RocknRollDave said:

+1 for the only way to stop this is to not buy the tickets. Alas, it means missing out on gigs but I'm damned if I'm paying £200+ to see U2 when the DVD will be about twelve quid.

This is another good point - you have to sit so far away from the band at some of these gigs you just end up watching it on the screen anyway.

I can recreate the experience at home by chucking 60 quid in the bin, squinting at the telly and throwing another fiver in the bin every time I drink warm a warm lager out of a plastic cup :-)

Exactly what I say to my wife. Who then calls me a grumpy old git. Sigh. 

ICBM

starwarsnosebleed said:

Recently had the same situation with Little Mix tickets for my daughter.
A few of her friends managed to get presale tickets and wanted to go as a end of school thing in July.
went online 9am, sold out.

The mrs couldnt bear to tell her she couldnt go, so we had to fork out £220 for 2 tickets!!

I must be harder-hearted than you. My daughter *didnt* get a ticket for Shawn Mendes when more or less the same thing happened. Sold out. Sorry.

stickyfiddle

Half the presale tickets go to ticketmaster employees - they get huge discounts apparently, so for any big gig they all max out their allocations and put them straight on ebay or wherever.

BRISTOL86

Absolutely disgusting. Was ready the second John Mayer presale went live just 7 minutes ago. No tickets available from second one, yet nearly 200 tickets already on GetMeIn at double fave value. Despicable practices.

Travisthedog

I may start an online petition 

boogieman

Have the Office of Fair Trading looked into this? It sounds like illegal practice, certainly morally very dubious. 

starwarsnosebleed

ICBM said:

I must be harder-hearted than you. My daughter *didnt* get a ticket for Shawn Mendes when more or less the same thing happened. Sold out. Sorry.

My mrs had told my daughter she was 'definitely going with her friends to see Little Mix' before she actually bought the tickets....!
i know..i know.

She went into panic mode at @8:55am when they were already sold out! And had to go the Getmein route.

Never again,

BRISTOL86

I put this in another thread but more people will probably see it here. 

I ended up with two pairs of tickets for John Mayer (London 12th May) so if anyone wants a pair for face value just shout. 

Axe_meister

Must be some unpublished API on the ticket master site rather than going through the UI

DiscoStu

Wasn't there an official enquiry about this a year or two ago? I seem to remember Ticketmaster and Get Me In being up in front of a committee and their argument was that ticketing has to be controlled so that's what they are doing.



Or something.

FreddieVanHalen

DiscoStu said:

Wasn't there an official enquiry about this a year or two ago? I seem to remember Ticketmaster and Get Me In being up in front of a committee and their argument was that ticketing has to be controlled so that's what they are doing.



Or something.

I can't remember the details but it looks like the investigations might be about to go a bit further.

From IQ-Mag

The British parliament’s Culture Media and Sport (CMS) Committee, which yesterday heard evidence from managers, artists and ticketing companies in a session on ‘ticket abuse’, has recommended a fresh investigation into “the whole area of ticketing” in response to “far-ranging and disturbing factors in the market”.

In a statement, issued this morning, the committee says it was “aware of the distortion of the ticketing markets caused by the use of technology (bots and software) to ‘harvest’ large numbers of tickets as soon as they went on general sale”, but that evidence from those opposed to the current resale market – and unsatisfactory responses from the ticketing companies represented – “led us to conclude that a fuller investigation of the whole area of ticketing is needed”.

DanR

Just make reselling tickets illegal.

If you can't go the site who sold you them gets to resell them at face value and you get back your money once they have been re sold.

olafgarten

Ticket prices are crazy, that's why I prefer smaller bands, Tickets are no more than £20 and you just have to show up 30 minutes before the doors open to get right to the front.

Been to 3 brilliant Margo Price concerts in London over the past 2 years and spend less than £60 in total. 

On the other hand, Brian Wilson at the RAH was £75 with seats about a mile higher than the stage. 

DrJazzTap

I luckily managed to get some tickets for Ricky Gervais in Bristol.  I was in the queue for ten minutes or so waited online from 500 down to 1. Unfortunately I couldn't get more than two tickets (no sets of four seats available) I wanted to take my sister and her boyfriend as well. So i selected just two tickets for me and my girlfriend. It wouldn't let me pick my seats so I asked for the best seats and ended up with seats three rows from the front.  Think that cost me £70 or something.

I have just done a bit of googling and the same tickets are being offered for sale through seatwave for £198 each!! It's absolutely disgraceful

Moe_Zambeek

I've given up on big shows these days because the whole experience is frankly shit. I've had more musical entertainment from less-than-20-quid events in small capacity rooms that take a couple of hundred people max.

As for Ticketmaster and Getmein, that's such an obviously cynical ripoff I can hardly believe they've got away with it for so long.

Alvin

 Live Nation are the promoter/owners  . They are also Ticketmaster  , Getmein  &  Ticketweb . They also own the Academey 02 venues   (worse venues ever ? ) 
   They are all owned  by the same company - Live Nation Entertainment .

   Live Nation promotes the  events .  It is passing it's own artists tickets on to it's own companies to resell and has been doing this for a few years now . It could also be forcing the venues to give a percentage of tickets to them for any of it's artists that perform at venues .

  The Genting Arena - NEC Birmingham (for example) has it's own box office  (The Ticket Factory) , it doesn't need to sell tickets through third party sites , if you want them you go there .   However you always see them listed on Ticketmaster .  This is unnecessary and the Genting Arena could stop this reselling if they wanted to ,  they didn't when it was owned by Birmingham City Council and they still don't now it's owned by Lloyds.        You are also charged £12.00 to park  , nice !

    The government have been ignoring this practice for years are they finally going to stop it ?
 
    The results of this are already taking effect , bands playing in half empty venues because people won't pay the ridiculous prices .   And the money doesn't even go back to the bands .

57Deluxe

I.m still waiting for my 2012 synchronised swimming tickets...

Travisthedog

And the public sale started at 10am and surprise surprise - I went straight through to ticket selection aaaaaand....

ALL FUCKING SOLD

Nitefly

There was a piece on R4 yesterday (You and Yours) about a show coming up in London - Hamilton?

The ticket seller was saying that only the original purchaser of the tickets would be admitted, on production of the payment card used to purchase the tickets.  No exceptions.

Only one of the big four ticket re-sellers was offering them, at hugely inflated prices, presumably in the belief that the rule wouldn't be applied at show-time.  (Of the other three, two are apparently owned  by Ticketmaster, and the third said they wouldn't chance it).

The bloke being interviewed said his daughter racked up over £6000 on his credit card to buy 4 tickets!!!

I don't think I'd care to take the chance of paying £6k and then getting refused admission.

kjdowd

ICBM said:

starwarsnosebleed said:

Recently had the same situation with Little Mix tickets for my daughter.
A few of her friends managed to get presale tickets and wanted to go as a end of school thing in July.
went online 9am, sold out.

The mrs couldnt bear to tell her she couldnt go, so we had to fork out £220 for 2 tickets!!

I must be harder-hearted than you. My daughter *didnt* get a ticket for Shawn Mendes when more or less the same thing happened. Sold out. Sorry.

@icbm - see the other thread on Amazon Tickets. They have Shawn Mendes tickets still available for £35.