The hue and cry over buying and selling tickets
Jim Carroll
It’s always slightly weird to see a very large number of people finally realising that an issue is worth fuming about. There was little in last week’s excellent The Great Ticket Scandal from the Channel 4 Dispatches team about the ticket touting business which will have come as a surprise to regular readers of OTR or other music business bulletins.
Even still, it was quite jaw-dropping all the same to see all those things you knew about widespread collusion in the live music business between the act, the promoter, the agent and the ticket-touting agencies laid bare in The Great Ticket Scandal. It seems that dodgy contracts and trying to pull the wool over the eye of the average music fan is not just a charge you can level at the record industry.
There has been lots (and lots) of comments and statements from all concerned since the show aired. You always get this sort of handwringing and outrage when an affair of this issue finally gets aired because all involved know there is nowhere to run anymore.
As the undercover Dispatches journalists discovered on camera, promoters appear to be in the game of holding back tickets for big shows so they can flogged for premium prices on sites like Viagogo (who tried and failed to get a court injunction to stop the show being broadcast on the grounds of “commercial confidence”) and Seatwave. Promoters mentioned fingered in the show included the likes of such well-known entitles as Live Nation, SJM, Metropolis Music, Phil McIntyre Entertainment, Stage Entertainment UK, 3A Entertainment and Irish big boys MCD (via their involvement in the V festival). It also shows that whoever pens warnings on the V Festival website like “if you use unofficial ticket outlet websites, ticket re-sale outlets or touts, you take the risk of being ripped off” has a rich sense of humour.
Naturally, the ticket resellers continue in business. After all, as they claim, fans want to buy tickets for sell-out shows and they have the tickets so, hey, we can do business. That they received many of the tickets ahead of ordinary decent music fans because of planned collusion between the various parties was always brushed over – until now.
Paul Mills puts it best of all. He was one of the undercover reporters on the show and, writing for the Guardian, puts it down to “a sleazy brand of capitalism that is typical of our times”. It’s greed, basically, a blatant money-grab by those who control the supply of tickets for high-profile, high-demand events to make even more money.
Nearly everyone involved in the shenaniagns had some mealy-mouthed excuses to offer. Viagogo and Seatwave have defended their turf, while the BBC received a comment from the Concert Promoters Association, which admitted that some promoters “at least in part, operate in the secondary market”. They then did some tutting about touts selling tickets which didn’t exist, as if the idea of selling real tickets at huge inflated prices was not as bad.
Like I said, “nearly everyone” had a defence, but about the artists? Where are they in all of this? After all, they’re the talent, they’re the ones who decide who promotes their shows and who represents their interests. Do they approve of this? Were they as annoyed and outraged as their loyal fans about this? Are they going to boycott those promoters listed above who engage in this appalling business of ripping off innocent fans?
Like hell, they are. The acts and their reps are interested in what’s on the cheque and nothing else. They demand massive fees (massive to make up for the lack of revenue they now get from recorded sales, instead of trying to work out how to work that changed landscape) and most couldn’t care less what prices their fans are charged to ensure they get those fees.
I know some OTR readers will go, as they always do when I point out that the acts have the final say, that the acts can’t keep an eye on everything to do with their business, but they can and they should. The buck stops with them. They have to be accountable for their actions in working with promoters who are now distrusted in the public eye by virtue of their assocation and collusion with organised price-gouging as discovered in the Dispatches show. Not that this will news to the acts or their managers: they certainly knew what was going on. If they didn’t, they weren’t looking too closely at the end-of-the-night settlements or asking questions or listening to their fans giving out yards about secondary ticketing agencies (we used to call them ticket touts but, going forward, they seem to have been given a new moniker) easily getting their hands on tickets to sell at hugely inflated prices.
Let no-one be under any illusion either that this practice hasn’t reached this island. If you really think that all 14,500 tickets for a hot show at Dublin’s O2 like, let’s say, One Direction will go on sale to the general public, you probably also still believe in the tooth fairy. While 10 per cent of the tickets are usually held back for O2’s priority customers, there will always still be far less than the remaining 13,000 tickets available on Ticketmaster’s system when the show purportedly goes on sale. How else do you think tickets for those One Direction Dublin shows in March 2013 can on sale minutes after they are sold out on the supposed primary ticket-selling site, on a secondary site like Viagogo at a hugely inflated premium? Do you really think people queued overnight for those tickets to go “nah, not bothered, have to wash my hair that night” five minutes after getting them in their hands about a show 13 months away? Perhaps we need a Dispatches-type expose over here to lift a few rocks and show the type of fat, avaricious worms wiggling around underneath feasting like parasites on the wallets and credit cards of Irish music fans.
must look that show up, sounds interesting.. trent reznor had a pretty good way of stopping touts from making money from sold out NIN shows- if you were a member of his fan club thing you would have advance access to tickets but you could only buy i think four tickets. by the time the tickets went on general release it would be almost sold out and the vast majority of the tickets would be in fans hands.
(deletia) – and if Trent Reznor and his people can do that, why can’t other people? All it takes is some effort and planning and, voila, you’ve the touts (because that’s what these set-ups are) bypassed.
However, it’s worth bearing in mind the many conflicts of interest in all of this – Ticketmaster is now a Live Nation company and LN also own Frontline Management, a big-ass management agency who look after 250 acts (including The Eagles, Neil Diamond, Christina Aguilera, Fleetwood Mac and Journey). Where do you begin to untangle the shenanigans when you have a cartel like that?
“If you really think that all 14,500 tickets for a hot show at Dublin’s O2 like, let’s say, One Direction will go on sale to the general public, you probably also still believe in the tooth fairy.”
Jim, i would say that 60/70% of the population believes that ALL the tickets go directly on sale.
Most people don’t have a clue/aren’t particularly interested in the mechanics of how events happen.
Take phone hacking. The public at large genuinely seemed to think that stories magically appeared in the press, even though it should have been obvious they didn’t/couldn’t.
When the man behind the curtain is revealed people are outraged but prior to that point they are blissfully unaware of what’s really going on.
colum – agree 100000%. It’s like I said in the very first line – it’s always amazing when something you know and have pointed out several times is suddenly pointed out on a much bigger scale and much hue and cry ensues. We need more shows like this to demonstrate the dirty tricks which are widespread in this industry – but we also need the acts to step up and accept their responsibility for and collusion in all of this.
“The Fans”………….O let’s protect “the fans” at all costs…………morons……….any mob going to see “One Direction” deserves to be ripped the hell off…….if there’s a window of op. (opportunity) in the system, criminal ingenuity will use it…….and who’s to say who are the criminals these days……….
I have doubts that the hue and cry about this now will actually last or result in anything. In relation to the phone hacking scandal mentioned above, the Sun on Sunday sold 3m on it’s first day; so I guess the outrage over The News of The World hasn’t hurt Murdock brand.
Fans need to stop paying over the odds – there’s nothing wrong in missing a gig or two. There are lots of great artists playing gigs with tickets unsold so you could easily miss a big gig and see a bunch of smaller ones instead.
Daniel – Fans need to stop paying over the odds
That would stop this immediately but it won’t happen. Fans want to see their favourite acts often at all costs and all involved are taking advantage of this
Is this a problem that affects the once a year concert goer rather than regular gig goers? While I hate the practice of touting, especially by the offical sellers, promoters and artists, it’s not something that has affected me personally much over the years. This is especially so lately as the number of sell out gigs deceases.
It would be almost impossible to leglislate against the practice-there are always loopholes for these weasles to exploit. Vote with your feet-don’t go if you feel you’re getting ripped off, officially or otherwise. Remember the indignation on this blog when Tom Waits played the tent in the park! Plenty of lifetime fans like myself didn’t bother and saved ourselves enough cash for 4 other gigs. Like it or not, we live in capitalist society and if you don’t like it, there’s always North Korea (which is not on One Direction’s itinery)
Mclovin – I think it only impacts on the larger gigs which sell out quickly. I can’t see any of the secondary ticket sites going mad for stuff in Whelan’s on a regular basis, unless it sells out and therefore creates a demand. I think what people are quite agitated over the collusion between the promoter and these touts – the promoter is holding back the tickets so they can sold at a premium to fans on the secondary sites. Thus, when the sold-out signs go up on Ticketmaster, the secondary sites can pimp the tickets out with a huge mark-up due to “demand”. Would love to know how much the promoter is getting for those tickets and if the act sees any of that money.
Jim,
I’d agree that the acts themselves need to be more proactive in this.
With platforms like Topspin (which I use for my own music), it’s easy to deliver your music, and importantly, ticketing direct to fans: http://www.topspinmedia.com/features/tickets
Acts need to make the decision to go this route though, but it’s hardly rocket science to do it.
BIg acts going it alone with the ticketing will put the frighteners on the promoters who think the kind of sharp practice you describe is just another valid revenue stream.
Having had to deal with the headache of how ticketing and admission was handled at some of the smaller Irish festivals last year, I can’t understand why this kind of technology isn’t used more by artists and promoters alike. The only things I can come up with are lack of awareness, laziness or greed.
@ 8
I’m the same. I’ve never bought a ticket off a tout or used a site that sells tickets for over the odds.
I used Toutless to get me out of a jam when I dropped the ball not getting tickets to see ex Kyuss frontman , John Garcia , play a sold out show in Andrews Lane a couple of years ago ,but you cant charge more than cost price on that site so that was all good.
Only time I payed over the odds was my own fault as I lost my Sisters Of Mercy ticket while moving house last year and ended up having to buy another
I can’t understand why this kind of technology isn’t used more by artists and promoters alike. The only things I can come up with are lack of awareness, laziness or greed.
tony – plus 1 from me on this – and it’s not lack of awareness. Promoters and acts are fully aware that alternatives exist but there is no will to break down the existing cartels and monopolies. Like we said the other week during the series of DIY posts, the live music industry remains the one part of the music industry resistant to disruption through technology. The established players are doing their level best to protect their interests to the detriment of the fan who pays the bills. More shows like this one are what’s needed to bring out the grubby behaviour and unsavoury business antics which are prevalent in the live music business.
Agreed Jim. What really baffles me, is why the likes of Castlepalooza et al don’t get themselves set up with this kind of platform. All it would take then is an iPhone on the gate to scan the tickets, rather than the printed out spreadsheets that I’ve seen being leafed through and crossed off at festival gates, with huge cues waiting. It’s not only acts that could see benefits from looking at how to sell direct, it’s an idea solution for small promoters too. Especially given that you can be creative and sell packages, allowing a simple scan at the door of the venue to show that this punter also paid for a CD/tshirt/etc. I’d be very interested to hear how much independent promoters pay for their ticketing service providers, and how that would compare to a $100 a year subscription to a platform that would allow them to do it themselves…
What I find interesting is that the push to stop touting has always come from fans, from the bottom up, not from the industry, or from promoters and only very occasionally from acts themselves. Stuff like the #ticketfairy hashtag and toutless have at least had SOME kind of small impact on circumventing touting here.
But what always annoys me is that outside any sold out show (the Olympia in particular), the Academy, the O2, or at the bus stops for Oxegen, you’ll always find touts blatantly hawking tickets. Yet no one from inside the venues, not the promoter, not the venue manager, security, or the passing cops ever say a word. If there was an exclusion zone for touts outside venues they’d find it harder to sell their tickets. And while I know the online touting industry is huge, outside venues is still the grassroots of touting. It’s the same old faces at every gig selling tickets outside at inflated prices, and no one in charge ever tells them to piss off.
“Like hell, they are. The acts and their reps are interested in what’s on the cheque and nothing else.”
Why slag off the acts? They gain nothing at all from this racketeering, which has grown into a multi-million pound business. If this money was going to the acts then it would feed back into the industry which would be a good thing.
This is another example of money being drained from the industry, which has had the consequence of massively reduced employment opportunities. The fan that forks out £200 for a ticket will not have the money for a summer festival ticket and many of these are under threat. I recently met a bass player who was considering giving up his music as it was getting very difficult to make a living. This was someone who had played supporting stages at Glastonbury, Reading etc. where below the headliners many receive modest fees.
When money is drained away from the industry in this way, there is less to spend on musicians & singers, road crews, and supporting acts etc. The summer festivals have major economic impacts on their localities and in providing jobs for cash strapped students on their holidays etc.
Sorry to have missed this last week – will hunt it down on 4oD. I see tickets for Snow / Flo’s barely-just-sold-out Phoenix Park gig are already on Getmein (which openly acknowledges its link to Ticketmaster) for £110 and counting.
There’s some further debate on the issue over here – http://livemusicexchange.org/2012/02/24/mastering-tickets – interesting arguments about actual ownership of tickets, and the possibilities around legal restrictions on live music ticket sales. But, as you mention, the onus is on the artist, too, and few of ‘em are making any noise.
A friend of mine decided a few years ago to never pay above the cost price for a ticket – even if he really wants to see that particular artist.
I know it’s not realistic to expect everyone to do this, but if everyone refused to purchase tickets at a greater price from touts then the market would crumble.
I’ve been to a few gigs in Dublin and the same touts are always there, trying to sell tickets at a ridiculous price.
At Bon Iver at the Grand Canal last October, I saw a dude paying 150 euro for a ticket (even with booking fees the tickets were about 38 euro) which was complete madness!
If I ever can’t make a gig, I sell the ticket at cost price so I break even and never look to make a profit but sadly touts by their very nature attempt to make the most money possible from fans.
una @ 14 – someday, I’ll reveal the identity of the promoter I saw sharing a bag of chips on the bonnet of his car with a tout around the corner from his venue. They were the best of buddies. Those touts have been around since the stone age and always will be. Anyone ever wonder how come you only ever find them at the sold out shows and how they never – or rarely – get stiffed with tickets for unsold out gigs? Very unsavoury business
John @ 15 – oh yes do! They get a fee. They get paid and because they get paid, they don’t give a damn about their fans. If the acts moved against this, it would be nipped in the bud right away (the organised touting – you will always have some people working at it but not in the organised manner of the secondary ticket market). But the acts won’t do this – and the silence of the acts mentioned in the C4 doc on all of this is hugely telling
Catherine @ 16 – thanks, I was trying to remember the name of the Ticketmaster-approved tout when I was writing this and couldn’t. There’s serious price gouging for you – does Gary Lightbody have anything to say about this? Will he look at the Ticketmaster settlement for this show and ask how come the tickets ended up immediately on Getmein? Will he hell!
Eoin @ 17 – I have only ever once bought a ticket from a tout and that was to see Prince in London years and years ago. Swore to myself then that I never would do it. There is always another time (or a venue window to squeeze through)
@ Una
“If there was an exclusion zone for touts outside venues they’d find it harder to sell their tickets”
100% Correct…..
Well they’re not breaking any law as far as i know so as long as the cartel are nice, cosy and cossetted then this can be brushed under the carpet by them. Indeed no brushing required just a “nil response.” What’s the National Consumer Agency’s role in all of this or is there any recourse for an investigation by them into these practices? I assume that the system is designed to be such that it’s all legal and above board.
As with some other posters i never pay above face-value for a ticket nor do i make money on any ticket i might have to offload. Call it karma but i’d rather give a fan a ticket for the price i paid. It’s also happened that i’ve been lucky enough on some occasions to get tickets for gigs as a fan and at face-value from a similarly minded punter.
Truth be told most of the gigs i go to don’t sell out or if i anticipate them to i’ll just get in there early and secure one to be sure. The idea of paying a tout an inordinate amount of money (whether an online “tout” or the chip-eating variety) for a gig is anathema to everything that i like to think I stand for. Music enthusiasts just like any other enthusiasts do it out of love of the tunes. When businessmen get their claws into it then we come to expect this kind of exploitation.
Oh – and i never share my chips!
Whilst there’s no doubt that touting is an odious form of market capitalism that’s largely undesirable I’m not sure I see what the big deal is.
As according to what I remember of the C4 the show these reticketing agencies, or whatever they like to be known by, rarely get more than 3-5% of the ticket allocation. Now if you’re a “real fan” you’ll be registered to the O2 fan zone or some other fan site to get first access or at a bare minimum there with your Laser/CC card at 8Am on the morning in question to get the tickets the minute they go on sale. Cause let’s be honest with ourselves here how many gigs actually sell out so quickly nowadays that it’s possible to miss getting a ticket cause ticketbastard is overloaded. If you’re not on the ball enough to do this then it’s hard to feel much compassion that you’ve decided to cough up 2 or 3 times the face value to ensure you get a ticker. That’s just stupidity on you the touted’s behalf.
As to what can be done about it I suspect there’s not actually a lot that can be done without major legal changes. As in the programme Viagogo had something like 2 or 3 credit cards in each staff members name so even if they didn’t get an allocation from the promoter they were still going online like everyone else and buying as many tickets as possible. I’m not sure it’d be possible to actually stop this happening. As they were clearly on the ball with every single CC registered to a seperate address.
Where they were in cahoots with the promoters the undercover reporter in Viagogo’s boss said that up to 80% of the additional revenue from the resold tickets had to be given back to the promoters. Now in cases where this is happening I have great difficulty in believing that the Acts themselves didn’t know about/weren’t in on the profit sharing as a result of it. Though of course that’s the stuff that’s impossible to prove short of some sort of major leak from a disgruntled senior staff member in an artists management co or a major promoter.
So unless the business itself decides to do something about it I can’t see any change happening. Based on it’s reaction in recent times to any other changes in their business models I can’t actually see them doing anything like that which would potentially effect their bottom lines.
Frank4Short – so unless the business itself decides to do something about it I can’t see any change happening.
I hear you loud and clear. We should remember that the acts are part of this business so it’s down to them to make the first move by disassociating themselves from the promoters implicated in the show (unless there’s a verifiable explanation from the promoters about this) to show their fans that they know what’s going on and they intend to do something about it.
Also 3-5% of a 40,000 capacity show is 1200-2000 tickets, which is sizable allocation for a sold-out gig to be given over to these touts/secondary ticketing bureaus for the purpose of pricegouging fans.
Jim @18. You’re guilty of tarring all acts with the same brush. Would you accept that some acts at least may be very concerned and want something done about it? I was watching Dispatches and the programme makers didn’t show much interest in getting contributions from the acts. There was no mention that they had sought interviews with Take That for instance.
This notion that acts don’t give a damm about their fans is peculiar. They depend on them for a livelihood, something they are all aware of. Any act that’s comtemptous of their fans learns very quickly the need for some respect when album and ticket sales plummet.
Whilst Dispatches revealed many outrageous practices, the problem was that little of it seemed to actually be illegal. There was no mention of material being passed to the director of public prosecutions etc. The programme was basically making the case for changes to trading standards legislation etc.
The acts are part of this business so it’s down to them to make the first move by disassociating themselves from the promoters implicated in the show (unless there’s a verifiable explanation from the promoters about this) to show their fans that they know what’s going on and they intend to do something about it.
See the thing is call me cynical but I don’t believe that the industry or acts themselves have any interest in changing things. Otherwise the Madonna’s/coldplay’s/et al the kind of artists who are selling out big gigs wouldn’t automatically be charging €50/70/90+ for tickets in the first place. If they’re getting a cut of the extra profit being made from these legitimised touts, and it’s hard to believe they aren’t. For big acts despite what’s said in public I don’t believe they actually give 2 flying fecks about their fans other than how much money they’re making off of them.
Also 3-5% of a 40,000 capacity show is 1200-2000 tickets, which is sizable allocation for a sold-out gig
Yes that is a significant number no denying it. However that still means that probably in order of 35K+ tickets have probably gone on sale by fair means. If you can call ticketmaster fair means. Which brings me back to my original point if you really are a “true fan” then odds are that you’ll have gone to every length possible to ensure you get your ticket when they go on sale. Rather than being lazy/off the ball then complaining about it later cause you’re stupid enough to let someone make additional profit at your expense.
Would you accept that some acts at least may be very concerned and want something done about it?
John – I’d accept that, if you name the acts and the steps they’ve taken. The fact that not one act – not one of them – mentioned in the show has stepped forward to dispute the findings is telling in the extreme. There hasn’t been one tweet, one Facebook update, one press release from any of the acts mentioned expressing an opinon to the contrary.
Frank4Short – agree with you on that – why would the acts bother their hoops changing this state of affairs when (a) they’re making out bandits and (b) people seem to think the acts are also victims in this (see some of the comments above)? Better to keep taking the big cheques.
@Una – good idea, but you can’t stop people just standing around on a public street which is what the boys would claim to be doing.
Good round-up by the always reliable Hypebot on this story
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/02/the-great-ticket-scandal-exposes-secondary-ticket-sellers-and-the-larger-organizations-that-work-wit.html
@ 26
An Gardai Siochana have no problem doing it in Rossport……………….
“Would love to know how much the promoter is getting for those tickets and if the act sees any of that money.”
As far as I remember from the program the tout/promoter split was 90/10 to the promoter on the amount over face value that the ticket sold for. So a £60 ticket selling for £1500 is a nice bit of cash. The tout site then gets all of the 15% “admin fee”
Good to see some acts are taking steps to change things (via The Lefsetz Letter)
http://johnmayer.com/tour/new-ticket-policies/
Now for others to cop on….
A bit late commenting on this but I recall being at a sold out Richie Hawtin gig in Mono – think that was the incarnation of the time – circa 2000 and, while awaiting a friend whose ticket we had, I and two friends saw the promoter handing over a fistful of tickets to a tout who moments before had attempted to sell us tickets – for above face value – outside the front entrance to the venue. This took place in the lane around the side and we were there as, for some reason – it’s something I’d never seen before or since – they were using an entrance around the back.
When we got to the door the bouncers/ticket desk staff were taking full tickets without returning the stub – which immediately made sense when viewed in the context of what we’d just witnessed. Upon realising what they were doing, I made sure to rip my ticket so that the stub was removed, as I was entering, to a reaction of righteous indignation and arrogant arseholery as I have rarely, if ever, encountered – before or since. They barely let me in in the end and, to this day, I remain convinced had I not been well able to enunciate my rights as a legitimate ticket-holder, they most certainly wouldn’t have.
As a result, it was unbearably uncomfortable inside as, due to the organised chicanery, it was at least 40%-50% over-capacity, so a complete washout after all that. Rip-Off Ireland in full effect, literally!