Ticket Touts
Well i have been going to gigs, sports events and music festivals for the best part of 14 years now and it’s unusual not to see a ticket tout on the way in to the venue. Glastonbury Festival has managed to totally stop ticket touts buying tickets (by putting photographs on the tickets) and other events have tried using one time use bar codes (printed from your computer and can only be used once, so no one trusts the ticket touts, who could have printed it hundreds of times). My opinion is the ticket touts are going to have to find other occupations within the next 5 years as tickets as we know them will become a thing of the past.
If the ticket touts are outside gigs/events, where people have extra tickets, or need tickets, then i feel they do provide a useful service (even though their prices can sometimes be a little over the top). But specifically purchasing as many tickets as they can for events they know will sell out is a little unfair on the true fans, these tickets usually end up on eBay within hours and go for a silly amount.
The way i see it is while gig/event organisers don’t implement anti ticket tour procedures and the general public is happy paying over the odds for sold out events, then there will always be a niche in the market for ticket touts.
The most i have ever paid a ticket tout was £50 for a ticket that cost £19, but that was to see a band who looked like splitting up, but never did. Easy money for the ticket tout.
What is the most you have ever paid to a ticket tout?
I paid $60 for a ticket worth $20, it was a last minute ticket and i was dying to go to that concert. The guy who sold it must have a great profit, because he sold many such tickets. But its not fair!