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]

Even though I agree that this was totally mismanaged, this is how ALL concert tickets are sold. It is NOT unique for the Prince shows OR for AEG. You just probably never noticed it before so I seriously doubt anyone has any legal recourse.

SCNDLS said:

I don't agree that just because all other concerts are sold in this scandalous manner that we should just let AEG/TM rip us off and say nothing. I have taken advice from Consumer Direct, written to TM Customer Services, written to the MD of TM UK, made a complaint to my credit card company and made a complaint to Trading Standards. All of this took less than one hour and I think the least we should be doing is to stand up for our rights and try to make a difference to future events. Surely if anyone's fans are going to make a stand it should be Prince's. We are old enough and wise enough and I encourage anyone who isn't happy to at least take an hour out to have their say.

Clare said:

U Go Girl! And may the money people don't get in your way of enjoying the concerts.