Remember yesterday when no one got tickets to Frank Ocean‘s two Australian shows? There are still tickets available. The catch is they cost an awful lot, thanks to the economic principle of supply and demand and the enterprising jerkhood of those individuals who did manage to procure tickets for the sake of on-selling them for profit once the shows inevitably sold out.
At the time of writing, eBay user estella598743987 is selling “2 X Frank Ocean Hardcopy GA Tickets Sydney Horden Pavillion” with the peak bid currently sitting at $405, and a pair of GA floor tickets to the Melbourne Festival Hall show are going for $396. Note that these prices are significantly higher than the retail sale price of tickets, which was around $89 including booking fee.
The problem here isn’t the people who are on-selling the tickets, but with the purchase policies of the organisations like Frank Ocean concert promoter, Live Nation, that don’t protect their customers – the genuine fans seeking tickets through legitimate means – from turning to scalpers time and time again.
Splendour In The Grass has worked with their ticketing company of choice, Moshtix, to ensure every ticket is distributed legitimately, making the process as democratic and fair to fans as possible. They have successfully prevented the illegitimate resale of tickets through a great system whereby each ticket is allocated to individual buyers using their personal details.
The Splendour ticketing policy states: Remember! You can only purchase legitimate Splendour tickets via our official ticketing provider, Moshtix. Do not buy tickets from unauthorised sellers – they CANNOT change the name and date of birth details on tickets, no matter what they tell you.
It’s a proven system that sets a precedent. Why don’t more concert promoters do the same?
We contacted Live Nation to ask what processes they have in place to prevent scalper re-sales from occurring and they didn’t reply. YOLO.
