As massive fans of Phoenix Nights, we had a look into getting tickets for one of the live shows in Manchester. Looking on Ticketmaster suggested tickets were available in 3 price bands so we did a search to see what we could come up with... Nothing, the night we wanted had clearly sold out but there was no indication of this, just a link to Ticketmaster's sister site GETMEIN. GETMEIN is an online 'ticket marketplace' for people to buy and sell tickets. On the GETMEIN site there were loads of tickets available but at a premium price. Premium meaning rip off in this case. There was also a processing fee added to each ticket despite us wanting to buy 3 in one transaction.

On clicking the BUY button, the breakdown was as follows:

3x tickets - £99.00 each
Processing fee total - £53.68 (what does this actually cover and who gets it?)
Order total - £350.68
Then in small print at the bottom it read 'The original face value of each ticket is £55.00 each as indicated by the seller.'

Surely this is immoral, needs investigating and regulating. I know it's been going on for years but that doesn't make it right. Remember the Rolling Stones tickets reappearing at £15,000 after their initial purchase? How can Ticketmaster be allowed to sell tickets, then take a cut from their customers on the resale of the same ticket through a sister site at a massively inflated price? Some of the tickets were going for well over £100 each. Bearing in mind the Phoenix Nights Live events are for charity, it just adds to the immorality and highlights just what a brazen racket the ticket industry has become.

I know this will keep happening for as long as there are idiots out there willing to pay well over the odds for tickets, but it needs to stop.

We decided not to go, we're big fans but we're not suckers.

You can hardly blame Ticketmaster (unless they are buying a reselling the tickets themselves) for this but should blame the individuals buying the tickets purely to resell.

What "regulating" is there to be done? Either tickets can be re-sold, or they can't. If they can, then this was, is and ever will be the result: tickets being snapped up mainly as a business investment with few intending to attend being able to purchase at the initial point of sale.

In principle, anyone can buy anything, it is then theirs to do with as they wish.

The answer would be straightforward, you either pay by plastic or produce ID, and that plastic or that ID has to be produced with the ticket to gain admission. And it would be easy, too. If millions every day can board hundreds of thousands of flights, with all their luggage, through not just ID but the full security charades, and all get settled in their seats, yet the planes fly on time, then it makes getting a few thousand into one venue on one occasion seem easy peasy in comparison.

However I imagine the reason the vendors don't do this is because they WANT the tickets to be like gold dust, so they sell out with no bother. If buyers had to attend then that would cut down the demand. Plus as you say they have got into the "resale" scamming themselves for a piece of that action too, which is another reason they won't do it.

I don't btw buy the objection that once you buy something, you have a legal right to sell which can't be interfered with. In this case it is a personal contract for a service, the "ticket" as a physical object is not the purchase, the personal right to attend the event is. The seller can impose whatever restrictions they like by contract on the buyer (and do - tickets always incorporate a whole raft of conditions) and as long as there was a reasonable option to get a refund if you can't go, it would be legal too.

GETMEIN is a sister site of Ticketmaster set up purely as a site for buyers of tickets to resell their tickets. Ticketmaster are condoning and helping all this happen and are also taking a fair old cut. You're not telling me they don't know what they're doing!

Well Ticketmaster are good at selling tickets, so I'd expect them to try to have some business selling consumer-consumer as well as business-consumer. If it wasn't Ticketmaster it would be someone else running a facilitation website. Would that be OK?

No.

Wouldn't be hard considering the majority of buying and selling is done online. Could a resale limit be set that only allows resale at retail price plus reasonable seller expenses?

At least we have some logic then, and no real objection to Ticketmaster's business.

So it's two routes ahead I see:
- Ticket buyers have to name the ticket users at the point of purchase, as per FA. Works for airlines, but ID checks, having to carry ID etc would be a pain in the .
- Tickets are sold at something closer to their real market value in the first place. If the first sale was at $50 and the resale $100 (sorry, no pound symbol on my SA keyboard!) then perhaps they should have been $100 in the first place.

Putting a resale price limit would just push the resale down more grey market channels and reduce the buyer protection you get by using an official channel.

Surely Ticketmaster would welcome an independent audit, just to satisfy everyone that they do not overtly or covertly allocate tickets to LetMeIn?

Yep, or audit by the event hosts who's tickets they sell, who I'm sure would be equally ed to find their reseller were manipulating ticket sales and pricing.

As I see it the 'ticket marketplace' sites are simply exploiting the popularity of the performers and punishing genuine fans with ridiculous resale prices (ebay's StubHub site currently has £65 price band tickets for just over £300). Meanwhile shysters who have no interest in the event whatsoever are making a tidy little profit. In the case of tickets purchased from Ticketmaster, this online marketplace is one of their own sister sites so there's a good chance the ticket has been bought from them then sold on to someone else through them. It all seems very exploitable.

I'm sure this happened prior to ticket sites, except:
It was less visible, not being in the public domain.
Fans were more frequently really ripped off (as opposed to paying a price they agreed to) buying fake tickets.

...or just don't buy the tickets.

I'd love to go see The Who in Leeds tonight but I simply refuse to pay upwards of £150 for two of us to get in, and as a taxpayer in Leeds I'm supposed to be a shareholder of the frikkin venue !

The online marketplaces are simply filling the gap that was previously filled by eBay or the blokes standing outside the arena in trench coats selling (often fake) "spares". The secondary marketplace existed long before the internet did.

It comes down to whether people should or shouldn't be allowed to resell tickets. For football, for instance, there is public order legislation that prohibits this, but it doesn't apply to anyone else. If you want to ban the reselling of tickets, who polices it and who bares the cost? Is it an issue for the authorities or the event promoters? At the moment, we have a series of individual and confusing systems which vary from event to event - and that's not helpful for anyone.

If we are to allow the reselling of tickets, then why shouldn't basic supply and demand take hold?

ID checks were done at all and we just strolled through a brief security check and in. Completely pointless announcement if you aren't going to follow up.

I understand and agree with the principle but think it's unworkable for a few reasons.

If, for example I bought the tickets and they have my name on, and I arrange to meet my wife in the gig for whatever reason, how does a female with a male name on the ticket get admitted? If the tickets have both our names on, then one of us can't go, does that mean the ticket is useless?

How does putting a name on a ticket prevent chancers camping on phone lines, buying loads of tickets, then re-selling them? Caveat Emptor and all that. If the venues and bands have an issue, they can sort it out between them. Punters, as Jerry C says, can vote with their feet.

I don't know how we solve the problem, and is there the will, in the current free market climate, to stop it anyway?

I read on twitter someone complaining of trying to book tickets, through Ticketmaster for a gig, only to find that they were all sold out. He then went onto LetMeIn and found whole blocks available at inflated prices. This was for a gig where individuals were restricted to the number of tickets they could purchase, so it seemed a bit strange that large numbers of tickets in concentrated blocks became available. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect that something not quite kosher was taking place

One explaination for "concentrated blocks" being available is whether these had been sold as part of a a priority pre-sale, prior to tickets going on general sale. I know that American Express and O2 customers sometimes have these offers availalbe to them, 24 hrs before general release.

Or, it could just be a conspiracy, since its very frustrating to be denied the opportunity to buy tickets to an event, despite trying as soon as they go on sale, only to find them on inflated resale almost immediately after.

Because the supply & demand model is being skewed by (and increasing number of) resellers who have no intention of actually attending the event, but are reducing the available tickets by maximising the numbers they buy purely for profit purposes, and by allowing this to occur, and taking a percentage of resale value, Ticketmaster are contributing to the problem, whilst maximising their income.

Pure market forces in action. You snooze you lose.
Promoters couldn't care less as they sell their tickets and bank the money no matter who buys them.

It took me about 2 mins to have a couple of tickets for 41 quid in my shopping basket. Just checked and Phoenix Nights has 12 nights in Manchester. I think if you can't find reasonable priced tickets you're just not looking hard enough.

Keep voting Tory and rip off Britain will continue. As for UKIPers any policy that is not racist would be interesting, but as they are a one trick pony I ain't waiting in anticipation.

I still shake my head and wonder how the hell we ever got to a position where people were ready, willing and able to pay £41 each (and more) to watch a comedian.

My father was a huge supporter of the CIU and in his role as amateur singer and comedian went out of his way most weekends to watch the country's top comedians perform in a club somewhere in this, and other cities - if he ever had to pay a cover charge on the door then he'd walk away stating that his £5 a year CIU card covered all of that mullarky, he NEVER paid a cover charge, he would have apoplexy having to pay a £41 (and the rest) cover charge to watch a comedian.

Mind, none of the comedians he ever saw were millionaires, most were full time professional though.

To be fair, although many may be millionaires, describing them as comedians would probably breach trades descriptions

Absolutely not, with the single exception of stuff where there is some sort of public interest justification (public order at designated football games, alcohol minimum pricing, and suchlike) the government can't and won't interfere with a free market. It is entirely up to the vendors to self-regulate and could quite easily (but at significant cost) do, but never will. They also mostly have contractual terms that tickets can't be resold but for the most part have zero interest in the bother of enforcing this.

There was the famous instance of [url=http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/nov/21/court-ruling-ticket-resale-websitesViagogo and the RFU[/url but I don't think it came to much and certainly had no impact on the vast secondary market for RU tickets

When I was in the first year of University in Salford, the Spice Girls decided to pop up again to make a few extra quid.

We thought, 'Great! That'll make US a few quid too' .. We queued overnight (around 15 hours), got on morning TV and all sorts and I bought 7 tickets. That was the maximum allowed, each at around £75 for front row floor tickets. I kept two, so I could take my sister for her Birthday and sold the remaining 5, well above face value. I made close to a grand.

I can't actually see a problem with a bit of ticket touting if you put the work in. After that, I did it for a few other big artists like Jay Z and 50 Cent and never had any agro from people buying them off me near the venue. Surely if someone really wants to go to a gig, they'll pay for it?

I understand it's frustrating on the phone lines, but the alternative is to go to the venue early and just wait..

(edit)

Obviously, nowadays I'd take a day off work and do it, but I would make sure it would be financially viable for me to do so..