Ah, the joys of a free market...

Now, call me a grumpy old bag, and lord knows it’s happened many a time over the years, but this really narks me in a major fashion:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6474181.stm

As I’m sure many a gig goer has noticed it’s gone from wandering down to your local ticket outlet (and tell me, where have they all gone. Ah, I remember the ticket booth just outside Piccadilly Records in Manchester…), and seeing what was on in the next couple of weeks to a major military operation requiring 6 landlines. 4 mobiles, 17 computers and the ability to hack into the mainframe of Aloud’s website just to have a sniff of getting tickets at 9am release time for any even vaguely recognisable band these days.

And then what happens? Charming little scrotes like the one above have got there before you and are selling the tickets they bought, not for the love of the band but for sheer profit, on eBay not 5 minutes later.

Yes I know, market forces, supply and demand, each to their own, blah, blah, blah, however, when, and I don’t want to sound like the letters page of the NME here but, people with a genuine interest in seeing a band end up paying through the nose because some money grubbing git who can’t be arsed getting a Saturday job to earn his cider money has snapped them up and is then selling them back to the market at inflated costs it makes me sick.

Yes, people could just not buy them, I’ve missed out on many a gig as a matter of principle, but that’s because I’m stubborn, but realistically that’s not going to happen whilst we have such a vibrant music scene and a passionate audience in this country.

What would make sense? Hmm, let’s think. Obviously it can’t be made illegal to resell tickets, otherwise what would happen when you’ve been dumped by the girl you bought Justin Timberlake tickets for (though why would you have been with her in the first place)? You’re hardly going to want to go with you and your rugby mates are you? Slightly more sensible, put a cap on the amount they can be resold for. Face value plus a fiver so you get your booking fee back seems reasonable. But can we see eBay, the biggest culprit in the growth of the bedroom tout, going for that? When they make more of a percentage on the sale as the price rises? Well, I wonder…