Touts Spoil Everything: That Led Zeppelin Ticket Lottery

When the details were announced for the Ahmet Ertegun tribute with the remaining live members of Led Zeppelin reforming to perform, Bricking Chick phoned me up and asked if I would please register. Her better half is a massive fan, as is she, and she knew that The Ledge and I, to put it mildly, are not. I happily obliged. I mean what better thing to do than to acquire tickets to the most talked about gig in the whole world and present them to a friend?

Well, it seems, the touts have spoiled even that.

So, anyone without a credit or debit card in your own name, parents trying to buy for their kids, kids trying to buy for their dads, and, well, anyone else who may have also chosen to register to get some tickets for someone they knew would desperately want a pair – if you don’t use them yourself, you’d better not buy them.

The email I received today telling me I was eligible to purchase two tickets reads as follows:

This passcode is non-transferable. Only the winner of the ballot as named above is eligible to purchase a maximum of 2 tickets using this passcode and a credit [or debit] card in their name.

It then goes on to inform me that, “Tickets purchased by anyone other than the winner of the ballot as named above will be cancelled. ” Then there’s some stuff about not being allowed to resell them or they get cancelled, before the following piece of joy:

Each original purchaser must provide the actual credit [or debit] card used for the purchase along with valid PHOTO ID (passport or driving licence) in order to receive the tickets and non-transferable wristbands. All wristbands will be fitted immediately. The name on your photo ID must match the name against which your passcode is registered AND the name on the credit [or debit] card used for the ticket purchase, otherwise you will be refused entry to the event.

Furthermore:

There will be no exceptions to the above, no name changes or letters of authorisation will be accepted under any circumstances.

And then the two pieces of info explaining the idiotic restrictions listed above:

We reserve the right to cancel any ticket purchase made by any person whom we reasonably believe to be associated with any ticket broker or tout.

and

We are doing our best to keep the tickets for this event out of the hands of secondary ticket sellers and in the hands of the fans so please help us by adhering to the above.

So, in summary, the touting problem has gotten so bad that I cannot buy a pair of tickets and give them to a friend who is a massive fan, because if they don’t put stricter controls on the gig tickets than they do on security at airports, then these tickets, tickets for a charity gig, will be changing hands at prices that even the band, the promoter and TICKETMASTER realise are ridiculously high.

Now, if touting were illegal and all of these vile ticket resellers were put out of business; if eBay were to restrict tickets sold via their website to “Buy It Now” at face value ; if people didn’t have so little sense of morality that they were more than happy to sell tickets to other people just like themselves at prices they know cannot be afforded by the average person; and if music fans could control themselves and realise that the world won’t end if they miss one gig and refuse to pay these prices, refuse to buy from touts and shout and scream about the idiocy of the situation, then I could maybe get a pair of tickets for my friend and her partner and they could go see this gig.

And yet again, other people’s lack of ethics and decency is spoiling it for the rest of us. Good luck getting Glastonbury tickets folks.

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