“This is industrial harvesting of tickets to create a rigged market to artificially hike up prices that fans have to pay.”
While we’re all still basking in the afterglow of U2’s phenomenal performance over the weekend, many of those who attending the gig had to fork up huge sums of money in order to secure a ticket.
There had been new bills proposed to help put a stop to ticket touting, but it was promptly shot down by both Ticketmaster and Seatwave.
Ed Sheeran’s upcoming gigs have put some massive speed-bumps in place to those who might have planned on buying tickets en masse and then reselling them at hiked up prices, but how many other acts might follow suit is anyone’s guess, as the amount of extra work involved might be more trouble than it’s worth.
Speaking to RTE’s This Week show (you can listen to the interview in full here), Reg Walker of Iridium Consultancy, UK’s leading expert on the black market trade, talks about the seriousness of the problem in the ticket touting industry here in Ireland.
“[We] have substantial evidence of a very serious organised crime gang operating in the Dublin area with business interests and a significant presence in Spain. They are backing or financing touts in the UK.”
Walker talks about an extremely aggressive type of software that is being used to buy up as many tickets from online selling sites as quickly as possible, which then allows the software’s users to post the tickets on re-selling sites within minutes of the event being sold out, but now with the tickets coming with a much bigger price tag.
While the UK has put into action a law that prohibits the use of this aggressive software, no such law currently exists in Ireland.
Similarly, some countries have put into practice a legal capping on re-selling ticket prices, with Walker suggesting that a 10% cap is a viable option, one that has worked well in other countries.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
