A bit of a fuss about the selling on of tickets…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7179834.stm

Promoter Harvey Goldsmith said at the time: “eBay are an absolute disgrace. They have no right to be doing what they are doing.

What a load of twaddle. We all have the right to sell what we are lucky enough to get don’t we? Whether it’s my skill as a s/w engineer or my winning lottery ticket. Even my kidneys are mine to sell - though sensibly enough it is illegal to buy them.

I’m sure I heard some clot on the radio saying they should stop tickets given to charities being sold on ebay - maybe I miss heard it and he said shouldn’t. Why give tickets to charities? Did some endangered panda really want to see Led Zep in concert? A ticket given to WWF is there to be sold at outrageous profit for the benefit of the charity.

I can’t really see the problem with touting in general. Market forces and all that. When I was young I queued all night to get tickets for my favourite band. Not something I would do now - being old and soft but relatively well off (relative to my student days that is, which isn’t hard) I would rather pay someone else to queue for me. As I remember it snowed about 3am - yes most of us over forty would rather pay up than sleep out.

If venues / artists are so concerned about making tickets available to fans and not just the rich they could do something about it themselves. Sell 80% of the tickets at half the current excessive price and ebay the other 20% to make up the difference. If flooding the market would drop the price & touts wouldn’t make such a profit.

Again, as with music sharing this has always gone on it is just that the internet gives us all access to it so suddenly “it’s a problem”.