Now, I’m sure that is not a controvertial sentiment I’ve just expressed there. We’ve all been there: wanted tickets to a gig, tickets sold out and the only way to get them was by paying over the odds to a tout. The thing is, back in the old days, the touts bought up some tickets, not like, say, half via the internet cause they had to queue up all night just like the rest of us, and then they hawked them outside the gig on the night. These days, they can spam the system of every ticket website going, keep the real fans out and buy up hundreds of tickets which they can quite easily sell on via eBay. Seriously, it’s just gotten out of control.
I’m going to tell you all a little story.
On Friday, the Killers put tickets on sale for their November tour. Most of these dates are in pretty small venues – Nottingham Rock City and Manchester Apollo being two that spring to mind. Now, I realise the Killers suck live. In fact, most of the people reading this will say that the Killers suck full stop. But my friend, Bricking Chick, loves them. We used their debut album to keep us awake on the overnight drive home from T in the Park, screaming along off-key to ‘Mr. Brightside’ and ‘All The Things I’ve Done’. She was desperate to see them live. So desperate, she was in the office early on Friday morning and on her mobile and the internet on four different websites trying to get one single pair of tickets. There was not a ticket website that was working. All the phone lines were busy. The gigs all sold out in under five minutes. Now, I find that amazing since all the ticket websites were not working, but there you go. The mysteries of the internet. She was gutted.
I pointed out that very often a couple of hours after this happens they get all the tickets for rejected credit cards back and put them back on sale. A person from Piccadilly Box Office confirmed this. So about 11am she was back on the computer and phone ringing around and trying to get some re-released tickets. None came up, to our knowledge. This was the point at which she got very curious and went on eBay. eBay already, before noon the day the tickets went on sale, had nearly 100 pairs of Killers tickets listed. All of these were already priced in the hundreds. By 2pm there were nearly 400 listings. This was hours after the tickets went on sale. Imagine how many pairs will be sold between now and November? Think hard. So, we’re talking a hefty percentage of the tickets for a very small tour. Now somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but is it not against the law to sell tickets on at more than their face value?
Now Bricking Chick is a clever woman. She phoned up See Tickets and asked what they do about these things. She was told that if they know the ticket numbers, they cancel the orders. She was also told that they make bids on the tickets themselves to stop the touts getting away with it. Large bids. Bricking Chick made a couple of very large bids too. £1,000,000 I believe. For one set she was outbid and lost. She won the other at £790,000. She’s asked the tout selling them for the ticket numbers and order reference so she can check there’s actual tickets involved before she transfers the funds…can anyone see where this is going?
Now I, for my part, attempted to contact eBay customer service about this issue. First I found to report Event Tickets you could do no more than submit up to 10 item numbers. Well, that won’t take long then, 400 items at 10 items an email, most on 24-hour auctions, yeah I’m sure it will be worth the 2 or 3 hours it would take me. I submitted 10 items. Then I went through a different form. It still wanted an item number. You can’t just email a general question, see. I listed one item number and sent the following note:
Message: This item number is one example of a serious problem. I did this: http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/search.dll?from=R40&satitle=killers+tickets after my friend failed to get tickets LEGALLY for the Killers. There are nearly 400 people selling tickets above face value ILLEGALLY on your site. Why are you encouraging and allowing touts to rip off fans? Why do you let it carry on? This is unethical and cruel and surely not the corporate image of your brand you want to convey and you want bloggers to be publicising? Get these down now. Stop making the touting problem worse. Thank you.
I received the following reply:
Thank you for your report of item number 180028703931, the two tickets
for The Killers, which you feel is in violation of our site policies.
We review all items that are reported to us and a determination is made
on whether the item is in violation of our policies. When a violation
has been committed we will take the appropriate action for that item.
There will be times when offenders will slip by because they have not
been reported to us. Please note that even if some sellers are currently
in violation of eBay guidelines this does not lessen the seriousness of
the violations for those sellers whose auctions have been reported to
us.
I will look into the item you have reported to us as quickly as
possible. eBay’s Community Watch team reviews all user reports of items,
normally within 24 -36 hours.
So, you see, they don’t monitor everything. They can’t. But here’s the rub. If it is against their policy and against the law for tickets to be sold over the ticket price, why are they allowed on as auctions at all? Surely that is asking for a whole heap of trouble. Why are they not allowed only as “Buy it Now” items listed at face value? Or simply not at all. This would solve a lot of problems. It would keep eBay from being complicit in allowing fans to get ripped off by dickheads and criminals looking to take advantage of people’s emotional connection to the music they love. It’s easy to say “Don’t buy them” to people, but if it’s your favourite band ever, and you can afford it, sort of…. I have my limits, but if, say, Morrissey did a farewell tour before retiring and I knew I may never get to see him again, those limits would bloody well go out the window I assure you! But at least if touts were discouraged from buying because they couldn’t make any money then more fans would get tickets. And fans needing to sell tickets on for whatever reason could use Scarlet Mist to sell them on at face value to other fans.
I guess my point is, why can’t this be monitored? I know there’s been a lot in the news recently and it’s being looked into, but why won’t sites like eBay make it a policy of simply not allowing ticket auctions? That would solve a lot of the problems. Why can’t ticket agencies make like Glastonbury and print names on tickets and require photo I.D. for popular gigs? This would solve a lot of the problems.
I guess what I’m saying is, if the bands and the ticket agencies and the corporate satan that is eBay actually had a heart about what music fans go through trying to get tickets for popular shows, surely something could be enacted pretty much immediately that would solve the problem?