You are a seasoned event organiser. You have a limited number of tickets which you know will sell out in minutes. You open booking and sell some 40,000 tickets in well under an hour. You know that hundreds of people will miss out and be willing to pay whatever it takes to obtain entrance. So why are you surprised when tickets appear on eBay and buyers are willing to bid more than the face value?
That’s the situation the rather naive Geoff Ellis, chief executive of T in the Park promoters finds himself in. Well just what did he expect? It really shouldn’t come as a surprise. Ellis intends to instruct his lawyers to request eBay remove tickets that use the “T” logo, but accepts it’s likely tickets will be sold before eBay have time to respond. I for one am not going to suggest he reads up on VeRO and saves his legal fees :-p Regardless there are no grounds for removing auctions not displaying his logo.
Just why someone organising an incredibly popular and well attended festival don’t take similar steps to Glastonbury with photo tickets, to prevent resale of tickets is beyond me. Either they have no market awareness (in which case they deserve to be replaced), or they have no cause for complaint after the event when tickets are on the open market available to the highest bidder.
Wake up and smell the roses Mr. Ellis!
