Ticket Touting: The Battle Enters A New Phase

The latest wave of controversy was sparked when Arcade Fire’s Olympia Theatre shows sold-out within 10 minutes of going on sale on Friday January 12. Initial disappointment turned to anger when fans discovered eBay immediately advertising tickets for as much as €250 each. 48 hours later, that figure had risen to an even more staggering €350.
“I knew with Arcade Fire being so popular that the chances of buying tickets online from Ticketmaster was slim, but having tried and failed at 9am to get a pair, it was really annoying to see them for sale on eBay at 9.10am for five times the face value,” complains hotpress reader Gemma Malone from Dundalk.
In retaliation, following a series of calls from hotpress, Ticketmaster – in what marks a new phase in the anti-touting battle – have now rescinded three tickets that were being offered for sale on eBay, and which were traced to an identifiable individual.
While most of the eBay vendors appear to be private individuals, a company called needaticket.net and quoting an address in Dublin’s Westland Row are offering €45.20 Arcade Fire standing tickets for €180. They’re also selling €24.50 tickets for Cansei Der Ser Sexy’s upcoming Ambassador Theatre show for €60 – even though it’s not sold-out.
“These are nothing more than on-line touts,” Ticketmaster Ireland spokesman Tony O’Brien tells hotpress. “If you look at the site you’ll see they invite people to sell them tickets, which they in turn will re-sell at exorbitant prices. The people who buy tickets and then sell them to touts like these are not real fans. They’re doing the ordinary fan out of a chance of buying tickets.”
Informed sources within the industry claim that it was possible to buy up to 50 Arcade Fire tickets, in one transaction, from the Ticketmaster Ireland website, but this is strenuously denied by Tony O’Brien.
“There was a limit of 10 tickets per person,” he insists. “Only four people purchased 10 tickets. The average purchase was between four and six tickets. We crosscheck addresses where we’re suspicious of purchases.
“Anything that goes on to the secondary markets, we’ll try to block those tickets,” he adds – a threat that was subsequently turned into reality with the cancellation of certain tickets that were being sold on eBay.
“We always advise people to only buy from legitimate outlets,” O’Brien says. “For instance, if you look up eBay, there are tickets on sale there for shows that don’t even exist.”

MEDIA OUTLETS GUILTY
Ticketmaster’s disdain for needaticket.net and rival “brokers” like ticketlandireland.com – who give an address on the Navan Road – is shared by the promoters of Arcade Fire’s Dublin shows, MCD. In a statement issued to hotpress, the head of marketing and PR, Justin Green, urges the Government to “close these type of sites down.”
In what is by far the strongest stance taken by MCD to date, they continue: “We call on other promoters, Ticketmaster and music fans alike to fully support our call for action and put an end to all forms of ticket touting now!”
MCD dismissed the suggestion that promoters themselves have done little to address the problem.
“Promoters and artists are the only people actively trying to combat touting by placing restrictions on the number of tickets that can be purchased at a time,” Green states. “This course of action goes against all economic sense – no other industry or business in the world places such voluntary restrictions limiting their sales. This is done out of genuine interest for the real fans.
“However, despite such action, it will never stop touting. We are not the legislators. Our hands are tied and thus yet again we call on the Government to urgently introduce legislation to end ticket touting once and for all.”
Fianna Fail aren’t the only ones who MCD are pointing an accusing finger at.
“Media outlets who carry advertisements on behalf of ticket touts are as guilty as the touts themselves as they provide the platform for the exploitation of genuine fans,” they charge. “We also invite the media to expose all touts by naming and shaming them.”

ARCADE FIRE JOIN IN
In the meantime, the promoters are stepping up their own anti-touting efforts.
“Any tickets offered for sale by them will be tracked to the source, cancelled and resold to genuine fans. Also, MCD are actively imposing a lifetime ban on all touts purchasing tickets for our events.”
Also lashing out at touts is Aiken Promotions’ Peter Aiken who proffers: “I don’t think there’s any fan, band, promoter or other person involved in the legitimate music industry who doesn’t want to see them put out of business. Realistically, you’re never going to stop individuals buying a couple of extra tickets and selling them on for a profit, but with the right legislation these professional American-style ‘brokers’ could be shut down overnight. The same goes for the guys you see selling tickets outside venues, ours included.”
Aiken Promotions, Ticketmaster Ireland and John Reynolds’ POD Concerts have all voiced their support for Fine Gael’s proposed ‘New Prohibition of Ticket Touts Bill’, which allows for the confiscation of tickets, fines of up to €3,000 and/or six months in jail. It’d also make it illegal for magazines like Buy & Sell or websites like eBay to carry adverts for tickets selling above face value.
“We weren’t consulted about Fine Gael’s proposals – we never are – but they’re definitely a step in the right direction,” agrees Peter Aiken.
Disappointed that so many tickets for their Irish and UK dates have fallen into the wrong hands, Arcade Fire have joined the fray with an appeal to fans.
“Please don’t encourage the touts,” the band said in a statement. “Wherever we have email addresses and ticket numbers for sellers, we will cancel the tickets and put them back up for sale on show day. Please don’t buy from them and risk your tickets being cancelled.”
Needaticket.net, meanwhile, have no plans to alter the way they conduct their business.
“We offer fans the chance to buy and sell their unwanted tickets through our site,” Needaticket M.D. Michael Scully tells hotpress. “This is a service which we hope to continue in the future.”