I think everyone needs a nice cup of tea and a lie down for a few hours. This will all be resolved soon

garneren said:

egansmind said:

Well he cant go back to the agents selling tickets now as he would look a bit of an idiot so I guess it will go ahead with chaos and pay on the door as there is little time to arrange alternative selling plans

Surely he won't go back to using Ticketmaster if they indeed own one of the scalper sites!

Btw, if that's true I don't get it if the media doesn't pick up on it. One of the world's biggest ticket outlets (if not the biggest?) being in the scalper business is a bloody good story!

It is 100% true- no secret at all- which I guess is why it's not a story. They own the scalping sites- as do the other bit ticket selling agencies.

..

[Edited 11/13/15 6:32am]

allwaystired said:

garneren said:

Surely he won't go back to using Ticketmaster if they indeed own one of the scalper sites!

Btw, if that's true I don't get it if the media doesn't pick up on it. One of the world's biggest ticket outlets (if not the biggest?) being in the scalper business is a bloody good story!

It is 100% true- no secret at all- which I guess is why it's not a story. They own the scalping sites- as do the other bit ticket selling agencies.

UK watchdog (I think, or Panorama - can't remember) did a full hour investigation on it a couple of years ago. It was all made very clear that they are thieving bstds. Nothing has been done, at all, in any way. If anything it's even worse.

GeoffB said:

Whatever the reasons for this, its gonna come back as bad publicity for him - he may 'never get bad reviews' for his stage shows, but the constant c*ck handed mood changes/alterations/removing schedules/albums etc are doing him no favours. I'm mindful he's not 100% to blame, but I don't see many other artists of his stature changing plans so late, so frequently. The tickets may go on sale today, but how many of us took time out of our non rock star lifestyles to try their best to pay a lot of money to see an artist we love perform, at extremley short notice?

.

Just set the max price at €150 or £150 whatever is your local fiat.

Then stop worrying as the price for reasonable 'seats' (somewhere in the middle or better) might be higher.

Then occasionally and not frantically check the news sources you know.

Only then choose to spend time, currency or whatever on this charade.

kindofblue said:

Question for those in the know: Is there any indication that the shows themselves are cancelled od postponed - or is it just the ticket sale?

I am not in the know but in hope The venues still list the concerts on their sites (at least konzerthaus.at in vienna) - so I think there is still a chance ....

Story in the Guardian

allwaystired said:

garneren said:

Surely he won't go back to using Ticketmaster if they indeed own one of the scalper sites!

Btw, if that's true I don't get it if the media doesn't pick up on it. One of the world's biggest ticket outlets (if not the biggest?) being in the scalper business is a bloody good story!

It is 100% true- no secret at all- which I guess is why it's not a story. They own the scalping sites- as do the other bit ticket selling agencies.

I had no idea! But maybe I'm just not paying attention. But how can they get away with it? Why don't the artists boycott those companies?

jasontate said:

allwaystired said:

It is 100% true- no secret at all- which I guess is why it's not a story. They own the scalping sites- as do the other bit ticket selling agencies.

UK watchdog (I think, or Panorama - can't remember) did a full hour investigation on it a couple of years ago. It was all made very clear that they are thieving bstds. Nothing has been done, at all, in any way. If anything it's even worse.

Thanks for the info. I'll try and check that out.

See I am all for trying to fight the touts, but there's got to be a better way to take a stand than to let fans wait in line for hours in the cold and then 10 minutes before the sale starts tell them that Prince wants it to be stopped and send them home.
I got an ad on FB yesterday myself where I was offerend Prince tickets for the show in my hometown (each category for 50€ more than face value) and I was pissed, but the whole problem isn't new. Why not deal with it in whatever way earlier than 10 minutes before the ticket sale starts?

[Edited 11/13/15 6:36am]

[Edited 11/13/15 6:37am]

Serious said:

GoldDolphin said:

garneren said:

jasontate said:

UK watchdog (I think, or Panorama - can't remember) did a full hour investigation on it a couple of years ago. It was all made very clear that they are thieving bstds. Nothing has been done, at all, in any way. If anything it's even worse.

Thanks for the info. I'll try and check that out.

I don't think artists d enough- but I think a big problem is that a lot of the venues have links with the sites themselves. The 'eventim' Apollo as one example. I'm fairly sure the agencies own a lot of the venues.

Pearl jam tried to take on Ticketmaster once too- they believed they were a monopoly. Some stuff about it here: http://ultimateclassicroc...ketmaster/

Side-tracking the convo on touts etc...

I just thought I'd call Theatre Drury Lane (with far fetched hopes) and all I could get out of them was tickets will be for sale at the door as well as an online medium however tickets wont be for sale on the day of announcement...

Before you bash this with 'what do you/hey know' or 'you just spoke to someone who doesnt know' etc, just thought Id fill you in on what I was told...no matter wether it holds true or not, or even if its something you all know anyway

garneren said:

jasontate said:

UK watchdog (I think, or Panorama - can't remember) did a full hour investigation on it a couple of years ago. It was all made very clear that they are thieving bstds. Nothing has been done, at all, in any way. If anything it's even worse.

Thanks for the info. I'll try and check that out.

It was Dispatches on C4:

https://www.youtube.com/w...WlnL8drSdw

At the time Viagogo tried to block it:

http://www.channel4.com/i...by-viagogo

garneren said:

jasontate said:

UK watchdog (I think, or Panorama - can't remember) did a full hour investigation on it a couple of years ago. It was all made very clear that they are thieving bstds. Nothing has been done, at all, in any way. If anything it's even worse.

Thanks for the info. I'll try and check that out.

Here's one:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWlnL8drSdw

djfine said:

garneren said:

Thanks for the info. I'll try and check that out.

It was Dispatches on C4:

https://www.youtube.com/w...WlnL8drSdw

At the time Viagogo tried to block it:

http://www.channel4.com/i...by-viagogo

Soz, crossed posts with you.

Lianachan said:

Story in the Guardian

From the Guardian Article:

"That was followed by a tweet linking to this week’s report from Which?, the magazine of the Consumers’ Association, in which the secondary ticketing market was investigated. The report found that tickets were appearing on resale sites before they were officially released, as well as simultaneously on primary and secondary sites. It also noted that resale restrictions were ignored by secondary sites."

jasontate said:

djfine said:

It was Dispatches on C4:

https://www.youtube.com/w...WlnL8drSdw

At the time Viagogo tried to block it:

http://www.channel4.com/i...by-viagogo

Soz, crossed posts with you.

wilgartw said:

Hi folks, I never understand why touts get such a bad press ... Hold on let me finish. There are calls in this thread for the govt to make them illegal, what in a free market capitalist economy? The govt can't even get Starbucks to pay their taxes, which they (and probably we) wave a lot more to gain from. Incidentally, I picked up a 12" copy of gotta stop messing about in 1982 in a bargain bin, I never listen to it these days, can I only sell it for 20p otherwise I am ripping off the real fans? The idea of photo tickets is great, glastonbury does it, but in order to do that there needs to be a returns policy. The promoters are normally not keen on that, mainly as they would loose out, how many times have you bought tickets to a gig and then couldn't go? If I couldn't give / sell the tickets to a friend then I would want my money back, or else I would lose out. The venues would need more staff, and more infrastructure would be needed for each ticket site to store your personal details (they could recoup this by selling your details on! ) the ticket booking fee would also be more expensive if a colour photo needed to be printed individually. What I totally disagree with is the resale sites being owned by the ticket sellers, especially if some are being funnelled off. Also ebay's stub hub - have you seen the charges? I tried to use it last year to sell some tickets at face value and needed to charge nearly 30% more (see point about returns above). My final point, honest, artist setting up their own ticket selling sites? Really? Do you know the amount of software development needed for this,me specially for seated venues? Every artist's team knowing the layouts and legal t&cs for every venue they ever play. It would be Ike suggesting prince employs a full time lighting crew and and buys all the lights instead of renting them for the 6 shows he is doing (possibly) in the UK this year. Of course artists should use ticket sites, they just need to ensure they are ethical. Ethical ticket selling sites, photo I'd / tickets, refund policy. No touts.

I agree to some extent. Anybody stupid enough to spend £2k on a ticket bloody well deserves to. But Prince could, and probably should, have done much more in preparation for this. He's been in the business a long time, so he shouldn't have been surprised about the scalpers. If he was wanting genuine fans at these small intimate gigs, he'd still have had some sort of NPGMC equivalent on the go to make sure they got first crack at the tickets. For a one off tour, it doesn't need to be complicted or expensive - even just a mailing list or such that fans could subscribe to would have done.

SquirrelMeat said:

Reading some reports that Getmein (Ticketmaster) had tickets on sale at 9am for £2,000.

just because someone is selling them at that price, does not mean they would of been sold.

I am questioning how many people would pay £275 for a prince ticket, let alone 2000

When i was booking last years gigs through ticketmaster, other sites were advertising them at £350.00 for the same tickets. In fact we got an extra ticket two days before the concert of someone on gumtree, for face value.

If prince never knew how tickets are sold, that touting exists before this gig then he has had his wee perfectly formed head in a purple bag for the last thirty years.

(do we really think he googled his name before they went on sale and realised with shock horror that touts exist, demanded tickets be stoped)

as many people have pointed out there are ways to sell tickets to fans, if that was his concern he could of gone down that route.

personally I think he has something else going on and is using this as a good cover story.

on a plus side, got some Andy Allo tickets for glasgow on the 30th

This morning, I was primed, two laptops, an iPad and phone, all credit card details up to date, ready and waiting. I decided not to look at this blog post, I needed to focus. I was feeling fairly chilled, my conversation with a colleague about bots and touts earlier in the week had made me realign my expectations - did you know you can contact a developer in India to write you a browser plug-in (a bot) that does all the hard work for you, and this guy in India was making $50k a year designing these things that allow a Nike trainer mad person to nab the new releases..?

I digress...it's just a different world we live in.

Anyway, I was primed, ready, waiting, against the odds, I'd seen the latest Bond movie the night before so my resolution was there in abundance, but I had said to friends, it's cool, if I get a ticket great, if not then okay..a new found pragmatism that maybe I put down to more important things in my life these days.

So, a look at 9.54am on Prince.org, this very post and I had to do a double take, something about Ticketmaster have tweeted, postponed ticket sales etc etc. I wasn't disappointed as such, my initial thoughts were Prince, what are you doing know, mutterings of 'arse' under my breath which made it to a FB post along with Prince is a genius but...I even stayed to check again after 10am in case this was a ruse, that the real fans would see through, ever the optimist..!

Then I checked Twitter, @Prince3EG, not being that familiar with how it all works, I saw a hawk, a vulture, multiple choice, TOUTS!! So, I read further, the comments, I posted my own, kept my FB buddies up to date, now there's a Which? report (who knew Prince had subscribed to the UK's leading expert reviews and consumer advice publication!!) and then I thought, go Prince, you rock (quite literally), my hero, take on these ticketing sites, the secondary sites, take the touts on.

It's a war that I'm happy to watch from the sidelines, they've annoyed me for years, if Prince can change this monopoly and have real fans get the tickets (like he did at Shepherds Bush Empire on that drizzly day in January) then it will be great to see and long overdue, but really, hwo hard is it for Prince to just set something up himself and be the leader of the new Revolution, there, I said it.

Fight the good fight people, I'm just going to listen to his music and enjoy this for the moment. I hope the tour goes ahaead but he can't backtrack now. Prince just gave the ticket agencies and corrupt industry a bloody nose, let's see what happens next.

ps. after this episode, I deleted my credit card details from TM and See, that's it for me until there's a better way.

[Edited 11/13/15 7:07am]

PurpleSpirit319 said:

feranti said:

He is still working thorugh "SQL for dummies", once he has that down he will set it up himself

Why doesnt he use Wix or GoDaddy???

he will get to that after he is done playing around with the meme generator.

allwaystired said:

garneren said:

Surely he won't go back to using Ticketmaster if they indeed own one of the scalper sites!

Btw, if that's true I don't get it if the media doesn't pick up on it. One of the world's biggest ticket outlets (if not the biggest?) being in the scalper business is a bloody good story!

It is 100% true- no secret at all- which I guess is why it's not a story. They own the scalping sites- as do the other bit ticket selling agencies.

There was an undercover documentary on tv a few years ago, about how ticket master has operations set up to buy the tickets then resell them. It is common knowledge. Was last year when he used ticketmaster.

dualboot said:

y. It's also the day they celebrate St Nicolas Day there, I guess I now know what present to ask for..[Edited 11/10/15 6:33am] The Dutch are under siege with the Black Pete concept so I can imagine Prince doing a 'duit in het zakje' (bringing up the UN matter on this)

Man, I hope he does. He'll be lynched by the audience, and the PR remaster will finally be released to mourn his passing.

djfine said:

jasontate said:

Soz, crossed posts with you.

Cheers to the both of you!

I don't think a lot of people here in Denmark are aware of this. Then I don't think many, if any, of the venues here are owned by ticket companies or their parents but Ticketmaster is one of the two leading ticket vendors after they bought Danish ticket company Billetnet a few years back.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the tour and not least the rest of the shows that haven't been scheduled yet.

Pentacle said:

dualboot said:

y. It's also the day they celebrate St Nicolas Day there, I guess I now know what present to ask for..[Edited 11/10/15 6:33am] The Dutch are under siege with the Black Pete concept so I can imagine Prince doing a 'duit in het zakje' (bringing up the UN matter on this)

Man, I hope he does. He'll be lynched by the audience, and the PR remaster will finally be released to mourn his passing.

Maybe in years to come, little dutch children who are naughty will be let down by Santa's tiny helper prince, who fails to seee through promises or dreams

wilgartw said:

Hi folks, I never understand why touts get such a bad press ... Hold on let me finish. There are calls in this thread for the govt to make them illegal, what in a free market capitalist economy? The govt can't even get Starbucks to pay their taxes, which they (and probably we) wave a lot more to gain from. Incidentally, I picked up a 12" copy of gotta stop messing about in 1982 in a bargain bin, I never listen to it these days, can I only sell it for 20p otherwise I am ripping off the real fans? The idea of photo tickets is great, glastonbury does it, but in order to do that there needs to be a returns policy. The promoters are normally not keen on that, mainly as they would loose out, how many times have you bought tickets to a gig and then couldn't go? If I couldn't give / sell the tickets to a friend then I would want my money back, or else I would lose out. The venues would need more staff, and more infrastructure would be needed for each ticket site to store your personal details (they could recoup this by selling your details on! ) the ticket booking fee would also be more expensive if a colour photo needed to be printed individually. What I totally disagree with is the resale sites being owned by the ticket sellers, especially if some are being funnelled off. Also ebay's stub hub - have you seen the charges? I tried to use it last year to sell some tickets at face value and needed to charge nearly 30% more (see point about returns above). My final point, honest, artist setting up their own ticket selling sites? Really? Do you know the amount of software development needed for this,me specially for seated venues? Every artist's team knowing the layouts and legal t&cs for every venue they ever play. It would be Ike suggesting prince employs a full time lighting crew and and buys all the lights instead of renting them for the 6 shows he is doing (possibly) in the UK this year. Of course artists should use ticket sites, they just need to ensure they are ethical. Ethical ticket selling sites, photo I'd / tickets, refund policy. No touts.

I agree that it is difficult, with the whole 'free market', supply and demand thing.

It still has to be wrong though - its not like its Regular Joe who can't go to a gig trying to sell his ticket, and make a few extra quid on top.

But with gigs selling out almiost immediately, and the sheer number of tickets appearing instantly on resale sites its pretty clear that this is organised touting on a massive scale. And the likes of Ticketmaster, See Tickets, Aloud etc all having these sites, they must know that, and so are happy to be complicit in that.

Made all the more gauling with their spiels about how the resale sites are helping fans out by giving them the chance to get those 'hard to find tickets'. They're only 'hard to find' because touts are somehow mopping so many of them up instantly.

If it was a few weeks before a popular gig, and there were a few Regular Joe's selling tickets at a notional markup it wouldn't be so bad.

The trouble is how to legislate it so that Regular Joe can sell tickets at a markup, but organised touts can't.

The solutions are probably the photo ID that Glastonbury use, or maximising the resle value at face value + xx%. How practical those solutions are, I don't know. But it seems pretty clear that something needs to be done, and has been something that has bugged me for years.

on a side note, what about all the celebrities that get given tickets or word before the tickets go on general sale? Perhaps prince should stop that too.If he wants his genuine fans at the front and centre.