According to reports in today’s Sydney Morning Herald fans are sick and tired of paying high prices for tix to sold out events and urge ticketing companies and artists to take action against scalpers now!
Furious at the apparent inaction by event promoters, government regulatory bodies and websites such as eBay, the punters are opting to take the matter into their own hands.
Meanwhile the powers that be are all shifting the blame. Live Performance Australia, the peak body that represents Australia’s live entertainment and performing arts industry, puts the blame on eBay for making it too easy for scalpers to operate.
LPA’s strategy adviser, Anna Joy Hoffmann, stated that the industry was looking at various ways to prevent scalping but many of the potential measures, such as printing names on tickets and checking identification upon entry, were both logistically and financially impossible to implement. (funny – isn’t that exactly what Splendour do…hmmm).
Ebay continues to deny responsibility using the old buyers market as an adage and suggesting that they are simply providing a marketplace which connects buyers and sellers, preferring to lay the blame on event promoters for not ensuring genuine fans can obtain tickets through the primary channels.
Fans meanwhile are taking out their rage on online scalpers by sabotaging auctions by placing fake bids and reporting tickets where the barcode is visible…
Speaking with the Herald, The NSW Office of Fair Trading spokeswoman Helena Baric admitted that whilst the government was aware of public concerns about ticket scalping and there was no simple solution.
“There is no current prohibition on scalping but the government continues to look at a number of options in relation to possible regulatory activity,” she said.
Recently Rage Against the Machine tickets sold out in a matter of minutes leaving many fans disappointed – within an hour tickets were on sale on Ebay some selling for more than five times the ticket price.
The terms and conditions of most event tickets say they cannot be resold, but Hoffmann admitted this did little to stop scalpers as enforcing the condition would mean taking thousands of people to court.
Suggestions that the industry implement a barcode system whereby, instead of a physical ticket, electronic barcodes are sent to the buyer’s mobile phone as a text message, which can then be used to enter an event are just one of the solutions being looked at to help cease scalping of tickets to high profile events.
de-tec-tive
said ages ago