A few bands are trying to quash the never ending struggle that is ticket scalpers, Iron Maiden and Radiohead have teamed up with Foo Fighters to try and sort out the problem once and for all.
It’s an issue we’ve all had to deal with for many years, tickets sell-out for your favourite band, real fans are left ticketless and in some cases have to pay extortionate fees to get a hold of at just one ticket.
The fight against the touts was started by Foo Fighters last year. The band kept things simple, no unnecessary computer ticketing systems, they went back to the basics.
If you want a ticket for a Foo Fighters show you’ll have to queue at your local venue box office, and to make things even easier for real fans, those tickets went on sale a week before the online tickets went on sale.
In a press release the rockers said: “Fans sick of Scalper-BOTS programmed to clog online queues and snatch up huge amounts of tickets to resell them will get first shot at tickets to these shows.”
It might not have been a perfect solution but it did guarantee avid fans of the band a real shot at getting tickets to see the Foo Fighters.
Now Iron Maiden, Radiohead and more than eighty other signatories have signed an open letter to the British Government asking for the sale of tickets to be more strictly regulated.
The letter was published in the Independent On Sunday and featured signatures from Arctic Monkeys and several sports organisations such as the Rugby Football Union and Tennis Association.
In the open letter, it asks the government to look more closely at the “unscrupulous” practices of the ticketing industry. It says that fans and artists should be protected, as opposed to ticket sites such as Viagogo, StubHub, Get Me In, and Seatwave.
