Sorry to start a new thread and repeat some of what I said on another thread but I thought it best to investigate a bit deeper in a new thread following an orger's advice and encouragement [thx btw].

OK, I'm trying to uncover some truths here as to how tickets were (or were not) allocated for the London O2 concerts. I think something's up with AEG the promoter and it would not be the first time promoters have done dodgy things.

So the question is: -

Did anyone here manage to get floor tickets OUTSIDE of VIP or Ticketmaster auctions or the Prince Fanclub code.

If yes, can you share

- from where?
- when?
- which block / row?

There are seemingly "legit" ticket brokers online today, and on ebay, selling plenty of GOOD FLOOR BLOCKS (LIKE D1) and ROW A on lots of different nights. These tickets are going for 400-600 pounds each.

How did they get these? Not via TM auction, those blocks were never auctioned. Not VIP, the seats have not been allocated to anyone yet. And not by chance on TM or See tickets, they would have ended up with Upper Tier like the rest of us did! And not by queueing in the rain. No it must be more sophisticated or simple than that.

They must have special access, perhaps fronting as a legit agent, selling some tix normally and putting the others on ebay that they're supposed to sell at face value, but then go and charge £450 or whatever.

It then occured to me that the promoters must be quietly giving ticket "agents" all the premium seats at inflated prices and that these must have been provided in advance of tickets ever going on public sale.

So just a theory no proof, but I googled a bit and uncovered these comments made to to the Denver post back in 1999: -

The Denver Post was told in a number of interviews that:

Promoters are taking a portion of their concert tickets, as allotted by their contracts with bands and venues, and selling them directly to ticket brokers without ever making them available to the public.

Some ticket brokers and promoters are working together to artificially raise prices, pocketing the profits and hurting fans.

Sometimes, when a broker cannot sell the tickets at a sufficient premium before the concert, he returns them to the promoter, who often releases them at face value on the day of the show.

Promoters have been known to act as brokers themselves.


That's pretty scary stuff and if this was happening in 1999 I'm sure they're even more sophisticated now. And, if the brokers can't sell their Block D1 [etc] tickets, they can give them back to the promoter, who'll probably release them via TicketMaster with sales on the day or night before.

I don't see Ticketmaster to blame here as has been done a lot over the last couple of months. They only ever had tickets the promoters gave them. A few lower tier and mainly upper tier at the presale. A few more lower tiers here and there. I'm pretty sure their computerised ticketing system just dishes out the best of what's available at time of purchase but what is available depends on the promoter. That's why sometimes See or Ticketline had tickets that TM did not.

To me, it seems AEG have something "sweet" going on with various brokers depriving fans of money while encouraging scalping at the same time.
[Edited 7/25/07 15:31pm]

I say keep an eye on Ticketmaster. I'd be very surprised if amazing tickets didn't suddenly appear on the days around each concert, if not on the day/afternoon of the show itself. If they can't find enough suckers to pay the premium, they'll offload the remainder at normal prices. I've seen it time and again.
[Edited 7/26/07 2:39am]

mikegray said:

I think you're right. Good tickets may well turn up at TM (as one of the official agents) once brokers return unsold tickets to the promoters as I mentioned in the original post. But what I'm really trying to expose is whether these tickets have been given by the promoters (AEG) to brokers in advance and never available to the general public via official means. If hardly anyone got them, yet verious brokers have bundles of them, what does that suggest?

It just appears deeply corrupt to me. Perhaps I'm paranoid, or just very naive?

They have definitely never been available to the public via normal means, and certainly not at the £31.21 ticket price. The trick was to 'designate' those seats as special and thus exclude them from the regular sale using the usual 'premium' / 'gold circle' crap.

machinegun said:

I think you are spot on. The whole thing stinks.

I agree.

And I'm one of the fools who fell for it, and paid too much £ on VIP x2, for average seats and alcohol, which is useless as I'm teetotal.

So, I'm going only one night. Can't afford anymore.

mikegray said:

But a large portion of these seats in good floor blocks happen to be in the hands of brokers that sell them without any VIP packaging. They have loads for all nights, Ticketmaster, and See have none. All tickets have a face value of £31.21 including my VIP package tickets. Even the quality of our VIP tickets have probably been sacrificed it seems to allow these "brokers" to make a killing.

Again, perhaps paranoia, perhaps naivity. Sorry to keep ranting on this, but I just can't stand the stink of corruption. It may not be worth a Panorama episode, but perhaps Watchdog would be interested. Though I'd love to see Panormama expose exactly how the promoters really issue tickets!

Would be interesting. Think Watchdog/Panorama would uncover a lot. This seems to be the norm for most events.

Especially since better seating appears to keep materialising, seemingly from nowhere.

Maybe we were spoilt in the past with our priority booking, but that always seemed to run smoothly.

Bailorin said:

yep, I agree. Definitely widespread, not just Prince.concerts. The comments in my original post from the Denver post interviews were not directly related to a Prince concert.

Some of this can be legitimate - for my sins, I have worked in the industry a little in the past. Basically, on the day of the show, or a week or so before, the promoter may find that they don't need so many comp tickets (for competitions, journalists, friends, family members etc...) and they can get thrown back into the pool, making a previously sold out show available again, and good tickets at that. I don't think that's this.

Where have all the floor seats gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the floor seats gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the floor seats gone?
Scalpers have got them every one
When will Ticketmaster ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the scalpers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the scalpers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the scalpers gone?
Gone to Ebay every one
When will Ticketmaster ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the buyers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the buyers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the buyers gone?
Gone to buy decent albums by others every one
When will Ticketmaster ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the truthful musicians gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the truthful musicians gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the truthful musicians gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will Ticketmaster ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with floor seats every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

Yep definitely a weird way to sell tickets, has really screwed the fan who awaits patiently for those first tickets to be on sale only to find that a month on down the line they would have got much better seats.
Guess in this case it really would have paid to wait
Another interesting comment maybe is that none of the VIP packages were alloted specific seats, could it not be that they were waiting to see if the better seats were sold at higher prices elsewhere first and then offer those that still remained as the VIP packages?

dori said:

Yep, quite probable and all part of the scam I'd say. VIP tix are still not allocated for most nights yet floor block seats already exist for sale at on ebay and on the internet. Some people here with VIP only got lower tier seats exactly because lots of good floor seats appear to have been handed to these brokers.

machinegun said:

In short, the answer to this question is YES the promoter gives tickets to brokers to sell at exorbitant prices then they unload the rest closer to the date. For instance, I bought 2 front row tickets from Viagogo at auction last month. One minute AFTER I won them, more tickets in the same block AND row "appeared" in a new auction. How is THAT possible unless the broker has a whole block of seats to sell?

saw block F3 available as general best available for a few dates....14th aug, 7th aug , no pass code, no VIP.
hmm.

SCNDLS said:

Interesting, that actually reveals a lot. On ebay and other online brokers as well the supply seems endless. Have you received you tickets yet?

On the 25th of July I wrote to BBC's 'Watchdog':

Dear Sir / Madam,

As an admirer of the music of the popular music artist Prince I decided to obtain concert tickets at the ticket agency Ticketmaster for his upcoming European concerts in London. Prince’s European concerts this year will almost solely take place in London’s O2 arena.

As a customer I feel deceived by the British organisers (AEG - London) and ticket sellers (Ticketmaster UK Limited) of the concerts and I am asking your advice in how to handle the situation which is not only affecting me but lots of other European Prince fans travelling to London in August and September for the concerts.

The regular ticket sale started on Friday, May 11th (the day before a presale was held exclusively for O2 telephone customers living in the UK). Tickets were sold by Ticketmaster as ‘best available’ on a first come first served basis. Ticketmaster claimed a sell out in the media soon after but went on selling considerable amounts of tickets bit by bit for several of the 21 London concerts which often turned out to be better than the tickets sold at the start of the sale cumulating in a widespread notice that new tickets for the concerts would go on sale on Sunday July 15th. Ticketmaster sold ‘new’ tickets for all concerts from that day on. The seats were much better than many fans and regular concert goers had been buying earlier as ‘best available’. Then, on Friday the 20th of July Prince’s official website (www.3121.com), made it possible to obtain tickets at Ticketmaster even closer to the stage, also for the regular price, after registering at his site for free. Many fans bought new tickets for the 2nd or 3rd time (see for examples the Prince fan website www.housequake.com among others).

Ticketmaster is claiming that the tickets they sold initially were tickets ‘best available at the time’ (although the ‘at the time’ phrase was not mentioned at the moment of selling) and that the better tickets that became available later are tickets that re-entered the sale after customers didn’t claim them. But the tickets that became available later turned out to be complete blocks in the O2 Arena consisting of hundreds of clustered seats that were part of the seating plan from the start and not the occasional unpaid reservation to be offered for sale a second time.

Ticketmaster informed me that they are not inclined to upgrade my earlier bought tickets. Nor are they willing to refund tickets bought by customers who are dissatisfied after learning much better seats had become available after their purchase.

Any advice or mediation you are able to offer would be most appreciated.


Thanks in advance,

Bob Blöte
[...]
The Netherlands


The concert organiser is AEG:

AEG - London
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London E14 5LQ
Tel.: (207) 536 26 00

Email: info@aegworldwide.co.uk

Web: http://www.aegworldwide.com



The ticket sellers are:

Ticketmaster UK Limited
48 Leicester Square
London WC2H 7LR
Tel.: 084 499999
Web: http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk

Very well written. Nice one.

If any others wish to contact BBC's Watchdog to raise a complaint or make a point here's the link -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cons...ndex.shtml

very well written indeed.If there are any lawyers in the community it would be interesting to check if advertising a show as "sold out" is in fact LEGAL when clearly the show was far from being sold out.This may justify class action lawsuit.

FunkyAphrodite said:

Thanks, anyone who has a complaint about the ticket sales and wants to inform local or British media like 'Watchdog' or official organisations like the British tourist board in your country please feel free to quote from my letter above if you wish (or Ticketmaster / AEG for that matter). It might work: http://www.revu.nl/5829

machinegun said:

It was very suspicious to me that the same auction info AND price were immediately on the site by the time I finished entering my payment information. Shady!!!

Nope, no tickets AND they won't release them to the venue AND they say their expected day to mail them is the week before the show which of course does me no good since I'll already be in the UK. I'm TOTALLY itching to call my credit card company to dispute the charges if I don't get my tickets AND if they're not what I paid for. The drama continues. . .

On the 27th of July I wrote to BBC's 'Watchdog':

Dear Sir / Madam,

In addition to my previous mail concerning the sales by Ticketmaster UK Limited for the Prince concerts in London’s O2 arena this summer I would like to draw your attention to the theory that is discussed on fan forum Prince.org (http://www.prince.org/msg/12/236224).

According to this theory Ticketmaster didn’t sell the most wanted floor seats, which are nearest to the stage, in their sales (except for a certain amount of so called VIP seats priced 235 GBP and the F-block for the fan club at the side of the floor). The suspicion is that all the remaining best seats are given to other Ticket brokers to sell for much more than face value and profits are split between Ticketmaster and the other sellers (see for example [...]). This way, and with the auctioning of tickets for prices far above face value on their own site, Ticketmaster might be keeping the scalping business in their own hand. But if the customer is better off by this alleged development is in my opinion at least questionable.
Fact: not one fan up to the moment of this writing responded on the request in the forum to confirm that they bought tickets for the face value price on the floor of the O2 Arena (except for the above mentioned VIP and fan club blocks).

I sincerely hope you are able to shed some light on this case. If the theory holds to be true I am very curious to know if this is a legal practice in the UK.

Kind regards,


Bob Blöte
[...]
The Netherlands
[...]


PS: In the meantime Dutch magazine Nieuwe Revu has caught on to this story (in print and online):
http://www.revu.nl/5829
[Edited 7/27/07 7:17am]
[Edited 7/27/07 9:28am]

And you can reach 3121.com at: webmaster@3121.com (info@31.21.com, help@3121.com, 3121@3121.com, postmaster@3121.com and even prince@3121.com are bouncing).

jillis said:

i got them read my thread X

1986 Parade tour, first show I caughth . Prince stopped his show cause he worried the people in the audience crushed each other
He cared, I almost believe he still cares. First come, first served. I got the worst tickets because I bought them first, is he paying attention?

If you're the promoter, it makes perfect sense. You sell the most eager fans the ticket in Row ZZ of the car park. Why? Because if the shows don't sell out, what's going to be easier to shift to someone less interested? Great floor seats or lower tier seats, or those seats in a different time zone? It's not rocket science. And of course that way, you get the good chance of those initial big fans double-dipping and buying again. It's a no brainer, sadly.

The Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad published an elaborate 2-page article with a colour photo (Montreux) on the front of their Saturday supplement ‘Ecetera’ today (July, 28th) about Prince’s upcoming London gigs. NRC is according to many Dutch readers the most renowned Dutch newspaper but they made the mistake of quoting the false press release by AEG : "De komende serie van 21 concerten in Londen, voor in totaal 140.000 toeschouwers, waren binnen een kwartier uitverkocht", which translates as: The coming series of 21 concerts in London for a total of 140.000 visitors, sold out in a quarter of an hour. Of course, as we know now, it didn’t sell out and the O2 arena holds at least 20.000 people, multiplied with 21 night makes 420.000 tickets, the after shows aside.
Apparently Dutch popular weekly Nieuwe Revu was more attentive in this case ( http://www.revu.nl/5829 ). Apart from that, not much news in the article and no references whatsoever to the ticketing problems. I couldn’t find an online version on http://www.nrc.nl

I cc-ed the customer service of the O2 on my letter of complaint I sent to ‘Watchdog’, at least they did had the decency to answer me. Interesting is that it is an answer from the O2 customer service with an email address from AEG. But are they bovvered? Are they really bovvered though?

On July 28th Bob wrote to O2’s customers service:
Dear Sir / Madam,

I am aware of the fact you are not handling the sales for the upcoming Prince concerts, which I look forward to very much, but since the concert will take place at your venue I would like to inform you of the complaint I sent to BBC's 'Watchdog' about how Ticketmaster is handling the ticket sales.
[...]


On July 28th [...]@aegworldwide.co.uk replied:

Dear Mr Blöte,
Thank you for your for forwarding the letter which you sent to Watchdog regarding your experience with Ticket Master.

I have forwarded you email to our Ticketing Manager and I’m sure he will be interested to read it.

Please feel free to contact the customer service team, should you require any further assistance.

Yours Sincerely,

[...]

Customer Services
The 02
Peninsula Square
London
SE10 0DX
T: 0208 463 2000
www.theo2.co.uk

The Denver Post was told in a number of interviews that:



Sometimes, when a broker cannot sell the tickets at a sufficient premium before the concert, he returns them to the promoter, who often releases them at face value on the day of the show.

well, this is exactly what happened. Great Gold circle seats released today for £31.21 and even in front of other VIP goers.

AEG: you're giving this industry a very bad name.

Row D & E tickets in block 111 lower tier for sale today, the day of the concert. Those masters!