ticket tout heaven

Here’s the ebay results for ‘Michael Jackson Tickets London‘ – just ONE DAY after the tickets went on sale to the public.

Every single one of these guys should be investigated by ticketmaster and banned for life from the site if found to be trying to make a quick buck. This is extremely worrying and it’s creating a new wave of ticket touts. This will do long term damage to all ticket sales from now on – it’s been highlighted to people all around the world just how much money can be made from tickets for sold out events.

tickets

It is blatently obvious every single one of these sales on ebay is from somebody who has bought tickets deliberately to sell them, hoping to make a profit. There is no excuses. Ticketmaster must also look at the number of tickets on sale on the ‘official’ fan ticket site of Michael Jackson – viagogo. By the way, on Jackson’s official website he links to and encourages people to buy tickets and VIP packages on viagogo – using an affiliate link.

It’s ridiculous. Real Michael Jackson fans are being taken for ride… they’re willing to pay crazy money for tickets and come from the US or Australlia at the drop of a hat – even if it bankrupts them – that’s just the insane Michael Jackson phenomenon!

Just look at the ticket prices below.

Michael Jackson Ebay Ticket Touts

ALL tickets sold on ticketmaster were between £50 – £75. I’ve done a quick summary here, but the first 12 standard tickets i came across that had bids on ebay, have sold for a combined €2663 + postage and packing of god knows how much.

On ticketmaster, the maximum 12 standard tickets cost would have been just over €1000. So tickets are selling for over 2 and a half times their printed value! And that’s just now. Don’t think for one minute, demand will die down and prices will come down – i’ve seen THOUSANDS of people on forums and boards across the web wanting and asking for tickets – willing top pay over the odds.

Furthermore, the tickets aren’t sent out until a couple of weeks before the event. So the actual concert tickets will be sent to the ebay sellers first. The ebay sellers then have to arrange sending the tickets on to whoever bought them. It leaves no margin for error with post.

Also, *if* Michael Jackson fails to complete all 50 shows and you’ve bought a ticket on ebay, you will not get a refund, the seller will. So again, you’re relying on the ebay seller to give you a full refund for what YOU paid, not just what the ticket cost.

These tickets were the fastest selling tickets for any concert in history. 1 million were sold within a few days. Many people, myself included, could not access ticketmaster due to the strain on the site. When we did get access to tickets, we were told ‘American Express’ only… o2 customers in the UK got priority, MichaelJackson.com subscribers got priority but again due to demand, it was virtually impossible to buy tickets as the site kept crashing.

Both o2, ticketmaster, Michael Jackson and AEG (organisers) have wrapped the media around their fingers, put out some stats early on and inflated demand for tickets because of it. 1 million tickets have not been sold to fans, 1 million tickets were never available to fans. Anyone who claims they were are lying.

Week 2/52
Creative Commons License photo credit: maldiviandude (in Singapore for a few days)

Giving o2 customers and AMEX customers priority, contributed largely to the amount of tickets now in the hands of touts. Due to media hype, these guys thought hey, i have an o2 phone or an AMEX card… most people (particulary outside the UK dont), so why not use them to buy tickets and sell them on as demand seems to be high…

That’s what has happened, and although people don’t realise it yet, it’s gonna cause some major problems if Michael Jackson pulls out of any of the 50 concerts. If he cancels dates, the touts get even more money (ticket refunds) and you’re relying on them to then pay back the ebay buyers for example.

So in effect, you’re relying on a greedy, opportunistic person to give you a complete refund maybe 8 or 9 months after he originally received your cash. It ain’t gonna happen. These guys paying £500 for 2 tickets will only get £150 from the ebay seller (the value of tickets). Don’t be surprised if you hear about this a few months down the line – in fact some media outlets are already getting suspicious.

Anyway, despite being sold out, i’ve managed to get tickets from a tour operator (for not much more than face value in a package deal) – more on that later. Although disappointed not to have gotten tickets myself and then hearing all 1m had been sold out, i wasn’t sweating…. i’ve more than enough lines of communication to point me in the right direction 😉 we all do really (anyone using the internet) – you just have to work hard and get the information you want as quickly, before anyone else. I’ll be heading over to london for a July 18th concert – just as i’d planned.

Common sense tells you there are loads of tickets not actually sold yet – they’ve just been sold to middle men who in turn, will sell them on in package deals or just for profit by themselves.

Note: If anyone wants to know where i got mine, contact me and i’ll get back to you – i’m not gonna blog about it as it’s another opportunity for touts to get tickets. July dates still available though as i wrtie this – that seems to be the most sought after date/s.

3 thoughts on “ticket tout heaven”

  1. Jesus thats crazy. But it’s Jackson, theres people willing to spend big bucks on his “final” tour in this neck of the woods.

  2. this neck of the woods & beyond! he could easily do a world tour after this and sell out wherever he goes!

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