Zep's reunion gig is going down like a Led balloon

A friend of mine doesn't live in a flat, he lives in a Led Zeppelin shrine: one bedroom, one kitchen and one room that is wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with Zep albums, bootlegs, memorabilia and merchandise. I frequently tell him he needs professional help.

Led Zeppelin leave me cold.

I appreciate the virtuosity of their work and yes, Robert Plant's vocal is truly a phenomenon of nature. But that's about it. However, like Dylan, The Stones and The Beatles, the band have a transcendent appeal to fans. There's a profound connection there - based on years of trust - that simply doesn't exist with today's big hitters (Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire et al).

My friend is one of the million people to apply for a ticket to see the three remaining members of the band reunite on stage for the first time in 20 years next month, when they play a show at London's 02 Arena, with the proceeds going to the Ahmet Ertegun Education Fund. But this massively anticipated gig (the line-up includes Pete Townshend, Bill Wyman and Foreigner) is turning into a fiasco, and could yet be ruined by consumer and legal problems.

The problems began from the get-go, when it was announced by promoter Harvey Goldsmith (who did Live Aid) that the venue would fit just 20,000 people. There ensued a lottery- style draw for tickets. The fact that one million people registered for just 20,000 tickets must make this the most oversubscribed cultural event ever. And at £125 plus the assorted booking fees, the tickets aren't cheap.

By playing to only 20,000 people, the band know they are disappointing hundreds of thousands of hardcore fans, the more extreme of whom would probably kill to be at the show.

Second, it seems that publicising the number of people who applied for tickets is simply a cynical muscle-flexing exercise by promoter and band. What this figure should tell Led Zeppelin (who made their fortune because of their fans) is that one million people desperately want to see them, so why not do a series of enormodome gigs?

The biggest problem, though, is the unique set of restrictions placed on how you pay for and collect your ticket. The gig is on November 26th, but even if you have paid for your ticket well in advance, you have to physically pick it and a wristband up on either the 25th or 26th. If you don't, you won't get in. This is intended to beat the touts, but for people with a life, it makes things very difficult.

Here's where it gets seriously stupid. Now that the 20,000 lucky fans have secured and paid for their Willy Wonka tickets, it has been announced that they will be turned away from the gig if they paid for tickets using someone else's credit card. Quite a few did this. Perhaps they didn't have credit cards, or their cards were maxed out, or they had other legitimate reasons.

Some disgruntled fans are arguing, quite rightly, that the terms and conditions were changed after the promoter had taken their money.

For his part, Goldsmith argues that it is now standard industry practice to make tickets non-transferable. He is correct in the sense that if I buy a ticket and sell it on eBay as a tout, I have transferred that ticket to someone else. But he's also claiming that if I use my friend's credit card to buy my ticket, that contravenes the "non-transferable" part of the contract. This shouldn't be so.

A glance at the online fan forums gives a sense of the rage and passion this "name on the credit card" nonsense has generated. This may only be rock'n' roll, but we don't like it.