Fans of Oasis the first time round will remember queuing round the block from venues and ticket booths to secure a paper ticket to see their musical heroes. At the time, it seemed like a slog. Having to stand for hours in all kinds of weather to be in with a chance of getting a ticket.
The only other alternative was waiting on ticket phone lines – but more often than not you’d receive an engaged tone. But fast forward a couple of decades or so and maybe it wasn’t so bad.
Yesterday, music lovers desperate to see Noel and Liam Gallagher back on stage together for the first time since 2009 had to do it all online. Amid website crashes, being told they were an internet bot and finding 4000 people were also waiting on the website, it was a wasted Saturday for most.
But that disappointment turned into a kick in the teeth when the tickets appeared on tout websites such as Viagogo and Stubhub just hours later – for up to £5000, nearly 30 times the face value.
There were ticket touts years ago but they were the shady guys standing outside venues holding tickets in the air. It was hardly a multi-million corporate venture like it is now.
Maybe there’s merit in concert promoters going back to basics and offering widespread paper tickets again for these massive gigs. It would have meant a healthy, less angry, queue of fans outside Murrayfield yesterday – instead of fury in front of screens.
There’s nothing to stop venues doing this with at least a proportion of the tickets. The only other way would be a government ban on tout websites.
Ireland seems to have managed it, with ticket rip-offs much less of an issue. But in the UK it seems far down the long list of government priorities.
Until a change in the current ticket sales system is taken, the trust that music fans have in getting a fair deal will continue to Slide Away.
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