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| Mumford and Sons |
Local Minister David Robertson highlighted in the Courier letters earlier this week his valid complaint about the sale of tickets for the forthcoming Mumford and Sons Caird Hall Concert.
I have since been in contact with the Caird Hall Manager about the situation and I reproduce her response below:
"I did request a ticket allocation from the Promoter of this Concert for Dundee City Box Office to ensure some citizens could purchase locally. The Promoter did intend initially to sell the tickets only via the Bands website via a password as everyone in the business is constantly trying to stop the ticket touts.
Unfortunately there is no government backing to make touting illegal although I understand there was a restriction with regards to re-selling of Olympic tickets.
Mumford and Sons are one of the most popular Bands around at the minute, they are also playing SECC on this tour and again sold this out on Friday morning.
We do have a top range ticketing system in Dundee City Box Office and with that is the facility to sell out online in minutes but again a decision was made to hold some tickets for the queue. It was always the case that demand would be in excess of availability as is the case for all major Shows worldwide.
Having assessed the situation following the sale and the comments made to Box Office staff etc, it maybe that in future the best procedure would be to have such Bands sell all of their own tickets to their fan base."
Personally, I think there is a real need for promoters to create the conditions where local fans of major bands get a decent chance to obtain tickets for concerts like this and it is really irritating to learn, as David pointed out, that 'ticket ''agencies'', eBay and other on-line sites were selling them openly within minutes for up to seven times the price.'
There is also a real need to government action to stop ticket touts - if it can be actioned for the Olympics, why not for other popular events?