When I was in the first year of University in Salford, the Spice Girls decided to pop up again to make a few extra quid.



We thought, 'Great! That'll make US a few quid too' .. We queued overnight (around 15 hours), got on morning TV and all sorts and I bought 7 tickets. That was the maximum allowed, each at around £75 for front row floor tickets. I kept two, so I could take my sister for her Birthday and sold the remaining 5, well above face value. I made close to a grand.



I can't actually see a problem with a bit of ticket touting if you put the work in. After that, I did it for a few other big artists like Jay Z and 50 Cent and never had any agro from people buying them off me near the venue. Surely if someone really wants to go to a gig, they'll pay for it?



I understand it's frustrating on the phone lines, but the alternative is to go to the venue early and just wait..



(edit)



Obviously, nowadays I'd take a day off work and do it, but I would make sure it would be financially viable for me to do so..

But surely the fact that Ticketmaster run both companies means that when Ticketmaster get the tickets they may sell half to the public and then half to Getmein or to staff who work for one or the other companies.



The opportunity for fraud seems quite high to me.



I have tried getting tickets for various things over the last couple of years and have given up trying to buy online

Heartwarming tales of greed at Christmas ....

Oooh, evoking fuzzy warm feelings of joy and hope.

Are you turning in your grave Charles Dickens?

Ah great. Well done you.

This forum does make me laugh;



Someone complains they can't get tickets to a gig. Helpful dose of reality ensues from some people, others balk and whine.



A related event is shared and the comments get mardy. Precious time wasted from the off.



That's the way it goes!

It's not an event I'm going to lose much sleep over missing. If however I'd worked my rocks off to get tickets for a favourite band and lost out to the touts I'd be turning up to the venue and kicking some heads in! Although it's unlikely to happen with the amount of pre-sale and priority schemes I've signed up for to avoid the disappointment of losing out to fly by night touts.

What, you expected a positive response?



You do realise most people detest ticket touts?

As Alan Partridge would say, "Scum. Sub-human scum."

I think that's a sweeping generalisation.



The reliance on the internet and phone lines has somehow convinced people that there is no alternative way to buy tickets.. My point hightlights the fact that if you queue up, you can generally get what you want, in more ways than one.



..and if someone wants something so much, they will get it.

Rubbish. Don't pretend you're providing a service or are some essential part of the supply chain. You're not.



You're a scab. A parasite doing nothing more than ripping people off, people who probably couldn't get tickets only because filthy scabs like you had snapped up massive numbers of tickets in the first place.



Yes, some people will pay well over the odds for an event. But they shouldn't have to so you can make a few pennies.



Don't like the truth? Don't rip people off and brag about it.

...on the other hand its the rule of supply and demand in its purest form.



Think sideways for a minute as you all tend to get rather sensitive when it comes to the thought of gig tickets for your favourite band - lets apply the rule to paperback books, lets assume that there is a release tomorrow of a popular novel in paperback and that its release is restricted to just a few thousand books and only available in Waterstones or Waterstones online.



What would you say now to those who buy ten copies and then sell them on at a premium (and find a market ready and willing to pay double or quadruple the face value), especially if the book can be read online (which most books can if you live in my postal area), would you be quite so critical or would you dismiss the issue as "the market in action".