THE GREAT ROCK 'N' ROLL SCANDAL

Brian Boydreports on the tout racket and the future of tickets.

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

Ticket touts used to be shouty old men curb-crawling outside concert venues an hour before a gig started. Music fans were grateful to pay over the odds for a tout ticket to get into a sold-out show, and there the story began and ended. Come the internet, though, we have the much-despised professional tout. The scenario is all-too-familiar to the regular gig goer: at 9am on the day when the tickets go on sale for a must-see show, the real fans are banging away online with one hand and pressing the redial button on their mobile with the other, as they desperately try to secure their place. With no joy on either front, the gig goer has a peek at eBay and, at approximately 9.10am the same morning, there are already tickets for sale - at vastly inflated prices.

WHY CAN'T I GET A TICKET FOR ARCADE FIRE?

Last month, tickets for a much-anticipated Arcade Fire gig at the Olympia Theatre in March went on sale. Hundreds of people were unable to get through to Ticketmaster, either online or by phone, and were left disappointed. Within 10 minutes of the €45.50 tickets going on sale, however, plenty of them were on sale on eBay for €250 - a figure which rose to €350 within 24 hours.

ENTREPRENEURS OR TOUTS?

Of course, there are people who have bought tickets for a gig but genuinely can't make it and want to reimburse themselves by reselling online at the face-value price. More frequently, though, people are buying more tickets than they need for a popular show and hoping to turn a tidy profit by re-selling them at whatever the market value dictates. While there are limits to how many tickets any individual can buy for a gig, these limits vary drastically between the type of show and where it's being staged.

Speaking anonymously, one person who recoiled in horror at the prospect of being called a "tout" told this reporter: "I've bought more tickets than I need for a gig that I know will sell out and I've sold on the two tickets that I don't need. The way I see it is that I've often had to pay over the odds online for a gig I really wanted to go to, so this way I'm just balancing things out. I don't charge outrageous amounts for the resales; I have a look at how much generally other resale tickets are going for and charge about the same . . .

"Ask most people what they would do if they had a spare U2 Croke Park ticket, for example, and they knew could get €1,000 for it on eBay or elsewhere online - and you'd probably find that everyone has a tout side to them."

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Very little can be done about the now almost ubiquitous low-level tout (the person selling on fewer than four tickets). A spokesperson for eBay says that most of its music ticket sellers are individuals with spare tickets, and nine out 10 of them sell fewer than five a year.

"People clearly believe that sport, theatre and music tickets should be treated like any other consumer good. If you have bought and paid for it, you should be allowed to resell it. This secondary market has always existed."

ARE THE PROMOTERS SQUEAKY CLEAN?

It's important to understand that touting has nothing whatsoever to do with ticket agencies such as Ticketmaster or concert promoters such as MCD or Aiken Promotions. All ticket agencies and concert promoters are opposed to touting, but have limited powers. According to MCD, which is promoting the Arcade Fire gig, all it can continue to do is to place restrictions on the number of tickets that one person can buy a time.

Legally, it's unclear how a promoter can track a touted ticket to its source, cancel that ticket and resell it at face value to a genuine fan.

There are companies who specialise in buying as many tickets as possible to as many events as possible and then selling on these tickets on their own websites for whatever price the market will allow.

ARE THE BANDS EQUALLY PURE?

The bands themselves are just as implacably opposed to touting, with Arcade Fire feeling moved to issue a statement about the levels of touting surrounding their upcoming Dublin show.

"Please don't encourage the touts," they said. "Wherever we have e-mail addresses and ticket numbers for sellers (sellers who have re-sold at exorbitant prices), we will cancel the tickets and put them back up for sale on show day. Please don't buy from them (the exorbitant resellers) and risk your tickets being cancelled."

WILL THE LAW BE CHANGED?

Given that it is election year, politicians here are making noises about legislating against the touts. But any legislation would have to be mindful of anti-competition laws and would have to be sanctioned by the Attorney General.

WHAT'S THE CARING, SHARING APPROACH?

One music fan who took action against the touts was Richard Marks, a British doctor who was so exasperated at unsuccessfully trying to buy tickets to a gig that he set up an anti-tout website called www.scarletmist.com. The site allows music fans to resell tickets at face value by introducing prospective buyers to sellers. It also allows fans to swap tickets.

"Scarlet mist is what people see just before they go absolutely psychotically insane with anger," says Marks. "My website is all about saying 'No!' to the rip-off whores and the mercenaries."

WHAT ARE THE GLASTONBURY RULES?

A long-term solution to ticket touting may well have arrived, courtesy of farmer Michael Eavis of the Glastonbury Festival. The 2004 festival was probably the most over-subscribed cultural event ever, with some five million people trying to get just 125,000 tickets. Distressed to see tickets changing hands for up to 10 times their face value, Eavis has now introduced photo-ID cards in an effort to beat the touts. These new cards will include a photograph of the ticket-holder, plus an electronic chip with the person's details to prevent tickets being sold on or forged.

Tickets for this year's Glastonbury go on sale in early April, and to be in with a chance of even securing one concert goers must register by either posting or e-mailing their photograph in advance.

IS PHOTO ID THE FUTURE?

Many of the main rock promoters will be watching how Glastonbury fares this year with its new scheme. If photo-ID tickets do prove to be tout-resistant, then expect them at Oxegen, the Electric Picnic - and Arcade Fire Olympia Theatre shows - before long.

WHERE THE GIG HAS NO DATE

Go to www.londonticketshop.co.uk and you can buy tickets to see U2 play London's Wembley Stadium on June 9th. The ticket prices range from £145 to £295.

Go to U2's official website (www.u2.com), however, and you will find a statement saying "Beware Rogue Ticket Offers: some fans have been in touch to let us know of adverts appearing in the press offering tickets for U2 shows in London and Paris this year. Take it from us, there are no live plans for this year. Do not buy tickets for U2 shows unless you've read it here first."

How can a ticket site be selling tickets for a gig when the band themselves say they have no plans to play live this year? This is known as the "anticipatory buy". It is somewhat equivalent to a Manchester United fan (spit) buying a ticket for the Champions League final in September. The Man U fan knows that if he/she waits to see if the team get through to the final, then it will be to late to get a ticket. But if he/she buys one in September, at least all bases are covered and if the team doesn't make it, then it's only the price of a ticket.

There is obviously an anticipation that U2 will play the new Wembley Stadium at some stage. Some diehard fans will buy these tickets knowing that if/when a U2 Wembley gig is confirmed, they will be up against hundreds of thousands of other people looking for tickets to the show. No matter what the risks attached to these londonticketshop tickets, they will sell.

As always, buyer beware - and take a microscope to the small print.