The gig ticket resale economy has become nothing short of a scam
Are music fans paying too much for tickets sold by third-party outlets online? Spoiler alert: they are charging like angry bulls but apparently the Government doesn’t think so. So that’s fine then.
No, actually it’s not. In fact, if there’s a minister available to talk to a weepy teenage emo (that’s a goth in old money) down the road from me, I’d be more than happy to provide the tissues if they can provide the explanation as to why she’s been outpriced from her dream gig.
I’m not going to lie, I’d never heard of Pierce the Veil, a Californian beat combo, m’lud, whose style has been described (on Wikipedia) as “post-hardcore”, “pop-punk”, “experimental rock”, “emo” (at last!), “screamo” (huh?) and “metalcore” (I give up).
But the kids have, and more than 10,000 of them will be packing Alexandra Palace in London next month and then elsewhere on tour. The doors open at 6pm. Over 14s only. It’s that sort of crowd.
My own in-house emo, bless her cobwebby socks, asked for two tickets at Christmas so she could bring a friend. Mrs Claus munificently provided; at £43.90 a pop it was an easy wish to fulfil, certainly a lot more realistic than saving the snow leopard or making the world go vegan.
Then another emo friend asked if she could come along – I was going to say the more the merrier, but that’s not really the vibe they are going for – anyway they said yes. I think they even smiled, sort of.
But it took her ages to save up the necessary cash and by the time she went to buy her ticket, the official agent’s cupboards were bare. They had all sold out. There are few more anguished sights than a grief-stricken goth, believe me.
How amazing, then, that a quick online search reveals that some more tickets are still available! From a third-party seller. I scrambled to buy her one before they too sold out – only to discover the price had rocketed to £118. Not quite three times the cost – but impossible for her to afford. It happens all the time now.
Last summer “Swifties” were being asked to pay an extortionate amount for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour tickets. Seats with presale prices of around £150 were being resold at £1,475 and, on one site, single tickets for the standing area were being offered at £3,314 each – over £3,000 more than the official tickets.
It was also reported earlier this year that Ed Sheeran fans were being hit by online scammers who appeared on Facebook groups claiming they had tickets to his sold-out world tour. When genuine fans sent over money for the tickets, the fraudsters either demanded more money or deleted their profiles and simply disappeared.
Fans were heartbroken. Although I recognised the unfairness, it didn’t affect me because I had no skin in the game. But now I know we’re a Pierce the Veil household, I’m incandescent with rage.
If a ticket is on sale through a third party, there is also no way of telling if it has been sold online before. There is no way of tracking it, which can lead to unscrupulous people selling the same ticket multiple times to fans who have no idea and only discovering they’ve been defrauded when they are stopped at the stadium barrier on the night.
So I could cheer up my daughter’s dejected emo friend by paying the £74 difference in the cost of her ticket, albeit through gritted teeth. But there’s no guarantee she’d get into the gig. Pierce the Veil? Pierce the Heart.
