Australian resellers of sought-after tickets find their auctions filled with bogus bids and hostile messages.
The problem of ticket scalping enrages music fans worldwide. Standing in line for hours only to see hoards of tickets sold to scalpers and nothing left but the cheap seats, fans have had enough.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, scalpers of prized ducats to the Splendour in the Grass music festival have seen their eBay auctions bombarded with phony bids priced high enough to deter legitimate bidders.
Splendour festival organizers posted a notice on their web site, advising fans not to buy tickets on eBay as they are not transferable.
“(E)ach SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS event ticket has security features that allow the organisers to determine if these conditions have been breached. All tickets will be checked on entry. Put simply, if these conditions have not been complied with YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED ACCESS TO THE FESTIVAL,” says conditions posted on the front page of Splendour’s web site.
Messages posted by anti-scalper fans have been very impassioned and frequently unprintable.
On the American side, Pearl Jam attempted to improve the lot of ticket buyers and took on Ticketmaster over ten years ago. Members of the band testified before Congress about what they viewed as monopolistic practices by Ticketmaster.
But the band found no help there, and also found that the best venues were reluctant to work with alternative ticket vendors.
David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
