Don't you just hate touting b*starts?!

WithCheesePlease

Was just curious and decied to have a look on buy&sell for tickets to either the Raconteurs or Pearl Jam gigs. And some of those absolute pricks are selling Pearl Jam tickets for around €150 each. Pisses me off. I wish there was something that could be done about this.

But their numbers are also listed... I've a good mind to start phoning and enquiring at 3 in the morning or so. And maybe again at 4, and 5, and half past......

Being sold here if anyone's interested...

GWM

That's actually not so bad. The first week after PJ sold out there were tix going for up to €400, no kidding. And I'd say people were forking out for them as well.

Creamy Goodness

tbh i do hate them but it's not their fault people are willing to throw cash at them to see their favourite artists.

i'll probably have to do it for sufjan stevens come end of october it's a bitch but if someone is desparate to get it's the price they pay for not queuing like everyone else to get them at face value.

honru

I've never been put in a situation where I had to pay a tout more than face value for a gig, so they're not really an issue for me. I just get likely sell-outs early and be done with it.

nxbyveromdwjpg

Dunno what your problem is, if you didn’t have people willing to sell you their tickets to a gig that was already sold out then you would have no choice and just plain could not go.
If you don’t want to pay an inflated price then either vote either your feet and don’t buy them, or get your tickets from ticketmaster early on the day of sale.

Complaining about it achieves nothing, this is a capitalist society we live in and people have the right to sell their property (yes they do own the tickets once they've paid for them) for any amount they like.

therecklessone

nm wrote:

Complaining about it achieves nothing, this is a capitalist society we live in and people have the right to sell their property (yes they do own the tickets once they've paid for them) for any amount they like.

Taken from Ticketmaster T&Cs:

If this ticket is re-sold or transferred for profit or commercial gain by anyone other than the Promoter, Venue Management, Ticketmaster or one of their authorised sub-agents, it will become voidable and the holder may be refused entry to or ejected from the venue. Ticketmaster reserves the right to cancel any tickets advertised or published in any manner with the intent to resell for profit or commercial gain.

nxbyveromdwjpg

Ticketmaster T&C's are not legally binding.
Like it or lump it, "touting" a ticket is just as legal as selling anything else you own.

Toast

nm wrote:

Dunno what your problem is, if you didn’t have people willing to sell you their tickets to a gig that was already sold out then you would have no choice and just plain could not go.

If there were no touts there would be
A.) more tickets available in the first place
B.) People with spare tickets, who usually sell tickets to the touts, selling to other music fans at face value. Surprisingly everyone gets a better deal as touts often buy up for less than face value from people with spares and sell on to the needy for more

Im sick of seeing this argument that touts somehow provide a service. They dont! They are an unneccesary middleman.

nm wrote:

Ticketmaster T&C's are not legally binding.
Like it or lump it, "touting" a ticket is just as legal as selling anything else you own.

Id like to see what loophole in the street trading laws they have managed to survive on so far. Also if they are doing it full time and without a license theres nothing stopping them signing on and not paying taxes. To the state they'll appear unemployed with zero income.

edit: Just should mention if you think about this some of these guys make 1000s of euro in a night. Sold out festivals like Electric Picnic can have upwards of 200eur profit on them. These guys buy up as many of these things as they can. I dont know their resources but Im sure with that much profit to be had they could easily acquire upwards 100 tickets to each easily. Thats not including the u2s, robbie williams, etc type gigs that they can easily get 100% 200% markups as well. I know they make losses on some gigs but it doesnt take a genuis to know which ones are guarantees and invest heavily in them. These people have an organised network in place to acquire as many tickets as possible to gigs. This is not about someone supplementing a ****ty welfare cheque with a couple of clever investments in tickets to feed a family. This is a hugely profitable, organised, cartel of vultures who convince people they are providing a service when in fact they are hurting the very same people. I believe theres a word for that... oh yeh.. The Mafia!

LundiMardi

gearoid_healy wrote:

Was just curious and decied to have a look on buy&sell for tickets to either the Raconteurs or Pearl Jam gigs. And some of those absolute pricks are selling Pearl Jam tickets for around €150 each. Pisses me off. I wish there was something that could be done about this.

But their numbers are also listed... I've a good mind to start phoning and enquiring at 3 in the morning or so. And maybe again at 4, and 5, and half past......

Being sold here if anyone's interested...

why didn't you just buy tickets when they went onsale, then you would have no reason to complain. It's because of people like you that touts exist.

Tha Gopher

Touts should be congratulated, theyre simply making money off other peoples stupidity or lack of responsibility (if you cant afford to spend 50 euro on the day tickets go on sale you should really reasses your life from a financial viewpoint)

BrianD

It would be helpful if TM (and others) allowed refunds. As you can't, the ony way is to flog your ticket. Perhaps when they move to home printed tickets refunds could be facilitated.

WithCheesePlease

LundiMardi wrote:

why didn't you just buy tickets when they went onsale, then you would have no reason to complain. It's because of people like you that touts exist.

and what if you queued for tickets and didn't get one, cos the people ahead of you snapped them up only to resell them?? Or if you couldn't get through on the ticketmaster website becase of demand and missed out that way??

you people are unreal!! I can't believe the response by some people to this. No, it's because of people like touts that touts exists. They are greedy, robbing scum bags that prey off other peoples' needs. They see an opportunity to make p*ss easy money and they take it, cos they're probably capable of nothing else.

Fair enough, they are making a bit of money for themselves. But I really don't think they should be commended for ripping people off. Are drug dealers just as innovative and worthy of praise too? Shur aren't they doing the very same thing?? Selling to people in need for an inflated price. Or otherwise know as exploiting a need in someone.

Fair enough they're making money for themselves, I just don't like or respect they way they're doing it. And I don't like having to pay over the odds to re-buy a ticket that someone else only bought with only profit in mind.

WithCheesePlease

Tha Gopher wrote:

Touts should be congratulated, theyre simply making money off other peoples stupidity or lack of responsibility....

They're ripping people off, plain and simple. And if you want to congratulate them it says a lot about you.

Tha Gopher wrote:

...(if you cant afford to spend 50 euro on the day tickets go on sale you should really reasses your life from a financial viewpoint)

Eh, how about if you couldn't get one because of demand, in part down to the number of people buying only to resell at an inflated price? Or if something came up and you couldn't physically get a ticket for whatever reason. It has nothing to do with having or not having the cash to begin with.

BrianD

BrianD wrote:

It would be helpful if TM (and others) allowed refunds. As you can't, the ony way is to flog your ticket. Perhaps when they move to home printed tickets refunds could be facilitated.

when you "flog your ticket", there's no need to charge over the top prices for it though. Ticketmaster's rules clearly state that they could void tickets that have been touted, so that means if you sell your ticket for face value, you'll be fine.

Last year, with 4 days to go to oxegen, i realised that i couldn't do the whole weekend, so had to swap my camping ticket for a saturday day pass and money.

on E-bay and buyandsell there were tickets going for €350+

I took a day pass and money to make up the face value of the ticket instead.

Sure i missed out on cash, but i kept my morals. And i believe in karma, my good deed will get back to me one day.

melekalikimaka

i think its a great way of making a bit of extra cash

indiewindy

One of the main reasons why there are so many touts in Ireland is because apart from the point (is the RDS still used for indoor gigs?) there is no indoor venue in Dublin that holds more than about 1300 people. Pretty much all the popular bands are selling out their gigs within a day or two. If someone opened a 2,3 or 4000 capacity venue in or near the city centre they would mkae a lot of money and lessen the influence of the touts. I have bought tickets off touts but have yet to pay more than face value

honru

I agree, Dublin really doesn't have a wide mix of venues in terms of capacity. Many bands are forced to play The Olympia as the next largest and dedicated music venue is The Point at 8,000.

"Vicar Street 2" will provide something inbetween hopefully.

LundiMardi

*ahem*the point*ahem*

Nermal

gearoid_healy wrote:

Eh, how about if you couldn't get one because of demand, in part down to the number of people buying only to resell at an inflated price?

tickets in events for high demand should be priced higher. why do tickets deserve to be treated differently to any other good?

ticketmaster price their tickets incorrectly, they should sell them at auctions to the highest bidder, and require passport numbers at purchase & print them on the tickets to prevent further re-trading. then they would get all the profit that currently accrues to touts.

Creamy Goodness

f®eak s&#169 wrote: »

I agree, Dublin really doesn't have a wide mix of venues in terms of capacity. Many bands are forced to play The Olympia as the next largest and dedicated music venue is The Point at 8,000.

"Vicar Street 2" will provide something inbetween hopefully.

there's goning to be a vicar street 2?

honru

Yep, it'll be built around the Docklands area. Capacity of 2,500 planned.

Mr Rivers

Touts - Guys who buy tickets for the purpose of selling and making profits = bad

People who cant go to a gig anymore and sell above face value via eBay or the like = fine!

Why should you sell at face value to the first person who sees your ad when there's real fans who'll pay that lil extra to secure the place at the gig they want!

seanironmaiden

Nermal wrote:

tickets in events for high demand should be priced higher. why do tickets deserve to be treated differently to any other good?

ticketmaster price their tickets incorrectly, they should sell them at auctions to the highest bidder, and require passport numbers at purchase & print them on the tickets to prevent further re-trading. then they would get all the profit that currently accrues to touts.

BOOoooo.... What a terrible Idea.

Mr Rivers

Mr Rivers wrote:

Why should you sell at face value to the first person who sees your ad when there's real fans who'll pay that lil extra to secure the place at the gig they want!

So that when the tables are turned you're not ripped off....

honru

Mr Rivers wrote:

Guys who buy tickets for the purpose of selling and making profits

People who cant go to a gig anymore and sell above face value via eBay or the like

Meh, they're both the same in my mind. A tout's a tout.

Mr Rivers

Deleted User wrote:

So that when the tables are turned you're not ripped off....

you missed out on tickets, you're own fault and the if ya wanna go you'll pay extra. I was on the other end once and happy to find someone on eBay to sell me a ticket, I paid €90 for a €25 ticket and even tho the gig wasnt great I didnt feel ripped off cos it was what I wanted

Toast

Nermal wrote:

tickets in events for high demand should be priced higher. why do tickets deserve to be treated differently to any other good?

Well for a start tickets are technically a receipt for a service not a good, specifically entry to an event organised by a promoter. The only common service I can think of right now that fluctuates price based on demand is plane tickets but having a system like that for an event would be terrible.

This is typical inverse pyramid economics. Youve a lot of people at the bottom who pay less who are supported by people at the top who pay much more. Unfortunately this all falls apart if the people at the top dont pay.

If you know that 2000 people are willing to pay 40 euro and cover your costs why endanger the system with having 1000 people pay 20 euro 500 people pay 30 euro and the last 500 pay 90 euro?

Airlines can do this because air travel is a neccesity and last minute bookings are typically essential travel which any price will be paid for. Gigs are entertainment and only considered essential to a very small percent of the populace and even then only certain gigs are essential to a fraction of that percent.

You might say have 1500 people pay 40 euro and the last 500 pay 80 euro but this is going to only cause an even bigger run on tickets when they go on sale because people will by the 40 euro tickets and undercut you reselling them at 70euro.. and you are left with 500 tickets no one will pay the price for. If you start constantly underselling your venues you are going to lose money as well.

Also your suggestions to lock tickets to particular people are nice but ultimately a huge amount of trouble to the average concert goer. I frequently buy additional tickets for friends. Often people pull out and are replaced by others or I resell at face value to someone on the night. If people cant get a friend to come to a gig they often wont go to the gig.. more lost money again.

Essentially what I am saying is that only a certain amount of people will jump through hoops for tickets and even then only for gigs that they care about. The system has to be easy, predictable and user friendly. Fluctuating prices and restrictions on tickets will just result in people not bothering. No Im sorry the only solution is to lock up all the touts.


Also Im surprised at Mr Rivers supporting casual touting.. man I thought you were cool. The issue with this is it actually supports professional touting in the end. If more people sold off their spares at face value thered be less people going to touts and less tickets being bought by touts as a result.

Mr Rivers

Toast wrote:

Also Im surprised at Mr Rivers supporting casual touting.. man I thought you were cool. The issue with this is it actually supports professional touting in the end. If more people sold off their spares at face value thered be less people going to touts and less tickets being bought by touts as a result.

Sorry man, I just cant see the problem in it. If I wanna go to a gig I get tickets early. If somehow I miss them I'd rather go to an auction instead of worrying and hittin refresh on ads here

People tryin to make a living out of it i dont agree with, that ruins it for others but I dont think the option of auctioning or selling above face value is a problem if there's someone that wants the tickets that bad and will enjoy the night!

Tha Gopher

gearoid_healy wrote:

They're ripping people off, plain and simple. And if you want to congratulate them it says a lot about you.



Eh, how about if you couldn't get one because of demand, in part down to the number of people buying only to resell at an inflated price? Or if something came up and you couldn't physically get a ticket for whatever reason. It has nothing to do with having or not having the cash to begin with.

Tough luck. 90% of people who couldnt get a ticket cant get it because

a- They cant be arsed getting up early to queue at ticketmaster

b- Couldnt afford it. Their own tough luck.

This is the real world. Winners in the real world make money. Losers provide them with that money. Id actually planned to spend about 1500 on 10 <snip> tickets and sell them for 500 each. Thank christ I didnt now.

Toast

Yes capitilism allows this behaviour but that doesnt neccesarily make it right. We live in a community. Other people are real people. From what you ve said you are in fact lowering the people you sell to in your view. Does that make it easier for you to charge them more? This is very similar to the behaviour of the prison guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Anyway every argument on touting always breaks down to the same issue on here. Its a question of morals and people will never agree because some people care about their own pockets more than they care about other music fans and seem to fail to realise that its a circular issue which will only eventually hurt them in the end. I probably sound like a hippie but anyway....

honru

Tha Gopher wrote:

This is the real world. Winners in the real world make money. Losers provide them with that money. Id actually planned to spend about 1500 on 10 <snip> tickets and sell them for 500 each. Thank christ I didnt now.

We don't encourage this kind of activity here. Consider yourself warned.

This goes to melekalikimaka also.