The great rock ‘n’ roll swindle

It has been just over five months since the start of our Out-A-Tout campaign and although we’re a long way from getting rid of touts completely, things have definitely been moving in the right direction.

At the forefront of the battle against the touts is Ticketmaster. Spokesperson Tony O’Brien had some very positive news regarding the fight: “Since the start of the campaign we’ve cancelled over 2,000 tickets that have been resold above their cost price. We don’t want to get into specifics about how we do it as that would give the touts an advantage over us, but we’re definitely making strides against them.”
While this is great news, it doesn’t mean the touts have been stopped completely. Since we started our campaign we’ve been contacted by dozens of music fans who told us about their tout horror stories. One story in particular caught our attention. Last year, dedicated Morrissey fan and Waterford native Roger Cahill tried to buy tickets to the former Smiths frontman’s shows in Dublin, but the touts got there ahead of him. He told Hot Press about his experience:
“I went onto Ticketmaster 10 minutes after the tickets went on sale. He was playing smaller venues so I presumed they’d sell out quickly. The two Dublin shows were sold out so I went onto eBay straight away knowing that more than likely a lot of the tickets would end up going on there. I was shocked. The majority of tickets would have been for sale in the UK.
“These tickets cost about €50 a go but they were being sold for three times that. I got in touch with Ticketmaster and made the point that the fundamental reason why a band comes to a country is so the people in that country can see the band.” Ticketmaster eventually sourced tickets for Roger and he said he enjoyed the gigs immensely.
His observation of an Irish market being flooded with tickets from British touts is a good one. Hot Press conducted a number of searches on eBay.ie during the past few weeks to see how many tickets to sold-out Irish gigs were being offered by British-based sellers. Not only were numerous Irish gigs being touted, but most were being listed at prices in Sterling instead of Euro with postage to Ireland being significantly more expensive than postage within the UK.
Hot Press set up the eBay username ‘outatout’ to ask these touts questions through the ‘Ask a Seller’ option on the page. I first identified myself as a reporter from Hot Press and then asked where they get their tickets from and how much business they do touting tickets to Irish gigs. Unsurprisingly, we received very few responses. But there were some.
‘tandn4w’, who also goes by the name Simon from North Yorkshire, was selling 10 standing tickets to The Rolling Stones concert in Slane Castle at the Buy-it now price of £90 (approximately €133.32) and 15 standing tickets to The Police in Croke park for £110 (approximately E162.94). The face value of these tickets are E86.50 and E90 respectively.
He emailed us the following response: “I buy and sell tickets on the net, which is just a market place. Would you liked to be condemned when selling your house or car or a bottle of wine which matures with age? Tickets very often deteriorate in value and I have been burnt many times this year. They are not all winners, I see the business as educated gambling. Kind Regards, Simon.”
Hot Press then pointed out that gambling is using your own money against a game of chance whereas touting is using your own money against a genuine music fans’ willingness to see their favourite act. Simon did not respond.
Another figure right on the forefront of the tout battle is Michael Eavis, organiser of the Glastonbury Festival. A ticket registration system launched for last weekend’s festival meant that anyone who was lucky enough to get one of the 137,500 tickets had to submit a pre-purchase application that included, among other things, a full-colour photograph of themselves.
If the application was successful then the ticket was printed with that person’s name, address and the supplied photo on the ticket’s face. This meant that only identical twins or those with the cash and/or willingness to undergo hours of plastic surgery should have been able to use another person’s ticket. With the system being hailed as a resounding success, the question arises – why has the same not been done for high-profile gigs here in Ireland?
According to Tony O’Brien, Ticketmaster is looking at the Glastonbury situation very closely; “We’re considering whether it would be something we’d want to do. But you have to remember that Glastonbury is just one gig once a year whereas we’re selling tickets all year round for numerous different artists playing numerous different venues.” When asked whether the photo ticket system could be used for high-profile gigs like Slane or Oxegen he said, “They would be the kind of gigs we’re considering.”
And so the fight against the touts goes on. Keep reading Hot Press for developments as and when they happen.