News I’d missed: online ethical ticket exchange Scarlet Mist has shut down.
Richard, the owner, writes:
I’ve been running it more or less single-handledly for the past eleven years, as a part-time hobby whilst doing my day-job as a hospital doctor. It has been fun to run it, and it has been a useful service.
Unfortunately my wife is now disabled and I need to devote more time to caring for her and my family.
Ticket touts and the secondary ticket market is here to stay. There is very little political will to address it, money talks in this world.
He’s right. My local MP is one of very many politicians who voted against proposals to crack down on the legal-tout market. Personally I don’t think gigs should only be available to the rich.
Comments
0 responses to “Another victory for the ticket touts”
That’s such a shame. I have to admit that I’ve not needed to use the site, although I was aware of it, but I’ve sold (at face value) or given away tickets that I couldn’t use through social media a few times.
Proper ticket touts are something I don’t really have a problem with. They buy unwanted tickets and try and sell them at the venue. They provide a service and they at least have to put in a little effort. The people who buy loads of tickets for gigs they have no intention of going to are scum. Traditional touts provide a service, online touts are parasites.
It’s like going into Tesco because you want a roast chicken for your tea. You go to grab a chicken, but there’s a group of 30 people surrounding the chicken aisle and you can’t get through. They grab all the chickens and take them to the tills. They then go as far as the doors and offer to sell you the same £5 chicken for £100. You pay it cos you’ve promised your kid chicken for tea.
I fully support making it illegal – not just because it’s tickets, but the law pretty much restricts every other industry from doing the same. I totally think that tickets should be allowed to be resold if you can’t go (the ID thing that Glastonbury did is a step too far) but you should only be allowed to sell them at face value+booking fee+postage (or even train fare if you have to drop them off!) You shouldn’t lose out to resell and equally the buyer shouldn’t be screwed over. Every other industry in the country is subject to laws that prevent this. It might be different if it was just individuals, but it’s not – it’s corporate now. I’ve seen £40 tickets going for over a grand and the site takes a large percentage.
Mibbe inland revenue should just create a new division to look at these ticket sites and charge people for tax evasion.
Then we just kill the people who completely ignore bands at gigs and the world is a better place.
BTW – It might be my browser, but your font sizes are enormous.
No, it’s not your browser, it’s the default theme. I haven’t had the chance to dig into the settings and change it.
> I have to admit that I’ve not needed to use the site, although I was aware of it
I’ve used it a few times, most recently for Teenage Fanclub.
> It might be different if it was just individuals, but it’s not – it’s corporate now.
Yes, very much so. The artists’ management are often involved too.
I’ve messed around with the CSS to try and make the font sizes more readable. No doubt that’s bollocksed up the site’s responsive layout :)