In honour of Ticket Touting

Suppose a show venue or stadium can seat 5,000 people for a unique event but the demand is 20,000; obviously not every-one can be accommodated. Events such as cup finals, major tennis tournaments and so on are often sold out, often in advance. For an usual tennis fan it is just about not possible to get a ticket for Wimbledon,
surely a centre court ticket or a ticket for one of the more valued matches. Which means that whatever way you look at it, there are going to be a lot of disap-
pointed fans. How then is it to be decided who will be disappointed and who will not?

The simple answer is that the fans who are prepared to use the most money will not be disappointed, which means that if a ticket for concert is £20 and a
fan is ready to pay £100, to a tout or anyone else, then he will see event, while a fan who is not prepared to shell out that sort of money will not. Exploitation of what? Well, the box office sold the ticket for a mere twenty pounds so the tout has made eighty pounds. Fine, then why didn’t the club sell the ticket for £100 in the first place? We have often heard of tickets for the men’s final at Wim-bledon changing hands for a £1,000 or more. If this is the going rate then the club should raise the price of
centre court tickets to a thousand pounds or something in that region.. From a socialist point of view they should welcome the tout — the small man — making a profit rather than the big corporations.

Is to become Ticket Tout an easy

The modern concert is going experience is ripe for exploitation. We kid ourselves that tickets at over-inflated prices stand for value for money, and on the night we queue for hours to buy sparkling lager at £3.50 a pint and take our seats in a different postcode from the stage.

All that we can just about live with. But the new phenomenon of gigs selling out almost immediately, only for tickets to reappear on eBay and other sites at overcharge prices, has driven many a music fan to the brink.

It is also the name of his website, which allows ethically-minded gig-goers to trade tickets without take advantage of each other. 'It's what you see just before you murder someone in a fit of passion,' he continues. 'When I set the site up I was really angry.'

The service models itself on a dating agency for music fans who are prepared to resell tickets at face value by 'introducing' prospective buyers to sellers. It readily admits that that it is 'not totally safe'.

'We don't know who you're dealing with. We cannot offer any assurances,' explains Marks. 'But then, if you buy tickets from unofficial sources, that is always the case.'

Rory, a 31-year-old accountant, has successfully bought Coldplay tickets and sold ones for Bright Eyes over the past few months.

'We acknowledge the problems that people have in getting rid of tickets that they can't use and the idea of being able to pass them on at the original price is good,' says Star spokesman Jonathan Brown.

Star is lobbying the government to restrict the resale of concert tickets. The problem is 'out of control' because of the internet, says Brown.

The internet has become 'the virtual path for a new generation of touts, reports Alex Needham, deputy editor of the music weekly NME

'More and more fans are desperate to see gigs, demand far outstrips supply and the economics of that means that it is ready for exploitation.'

Chances of getting Olympics Tickets

It depends totally on in which event are you interested in. Athletics finals, swimming and track cycling will be particularly over-subscribed but at the other end of the scale tickets for the handball or taekwondo qualifiers will prove hard to shift. Games chiefs have divided some events into many sessions, boosting your chances of a ticket. In spite of all those chance if you will fail to get Olympics tickets. . . or you can deal with the touts. It is the only best solution.