Let the buyer beware...

Ticketmaster and the Gardai have warned gig-goers to be on the alert after forged tickets turned up at both of Justin Timberlake's Point Theatre gigs.

"A couple of dozen people were found with not very good forgeries and had to be turned away," says Ticketmaster MD Tommy Higgins. "Interviewed, 90% said they'd bought them through advertisements in newspapers and magazines. It was only a handful this time, but with a lot of big, sell-out concerts this summer it might increase."

Higgins is calling for new legislation to curb the practice.

"They already have a law in certain American states where it's illegal to re-sell tickets within a mile or two of the venue," he resumes. "I'd go even further and say no re-sale of tickets, full stop."

According to Higgins, "The Gardai are following a definite line of inquiry. What that exactly is I don't know, but I imagine it would include the monitoring of these adverts to see if certain telephone numbers keep cropping up.

"Our advice is only buy from authorised ticket outlets. Forgeries, however good they are, are always detectable and you won't get in with them."

One only has to look at the hundreds of Justin Timberlake, Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney tickets adverstised in Buy & Sell recently to see how hard private transactions are to police. Asked what checks are made prior to ads being accepted, spokesperson Jill Armer says: "Buy & Sell always take any such issues very seriously indeed; and in respose (to the Garda warning) Buy & Sell will be confirming all advertisements for tickets at the advertiser's landline number. These will then be retained on file."

Asked what Buy & Sell make of Tommy Higgins' call for a complete ban on ticket resales, Armer adds: "There are many people who may have genuinely good reason for re-selling their tickets, for example illness or other commitments and this would need to be taken into consideration before taking such a decision."