I don't know if this post will be up for long because I've not quite planned it but I felt the need to output my anger about ticket touts somewhere.
I'm sure no one feels positively about those inconsiderate bastards who take away the chance for music lovers to see their favourite artists/bands in replacement for selling them at a ridiculous amount of money (usually at least 4 times the price of the original tickets). But this really gets on my nerves.
Without sounding too deep or hippy-like, music is an art form. Art is meant to be accessible for anyone from any background, any country, any race, any class etc. This is why being in London is so great because there are many free places exhibiting art, like the many galleries that we're lucky enough to have on our doorsteps.
Similar to that, music is able to be heard or appreciated by anyone. It doesn't matter how you look/dress/act etc absolutely anyone can be passionate about it and access it (to a certain extent). Now obviously for most gigs we have to pay, and admittedly it's much pricier now than when my parents were going to them back in the 70s. However, there is a difference between paying a little more for the bands you REALLY love and tickets being resold for the price of a small mortgage that at the end of the day, the artist has chosen to do for the FANS.
For example, I was on 4 different devices this evening trying to get tickets for Radio 1's Coldplay gig (I should also point out that I had a tab up with the official GMT as well!) I was refreshing the page every minute up to 7.45pm when the tickets went on sale, waiting for the link to click. As soon as it was there, I was on the waiting list to get to the website. I was in the queue for under 3 minutes, and by the time I got to ticketweb.co.uk, they had sold out.
Now I know Coldplay are a really popular band and you always need to be on the ball if you're wanting tickets for their gigs, but it's clear that it's not just lots of eager fans getting hold of the tickets as websites like Viagogo are still allowing them to be resold by these idiots at '£5000'.. yes you heard right.
As naive as I sound, I can't help but find it so disgusting that people would completely disregard this and once again, ruin people's chances of getting to see a band that really means something to them.
It's just another one of those unfortunate things where money takes priority over people's conscience. Let's just hope karma bites back.
