Ticket touts cash in on last ever Sabbath concert

BLACK Sabbath fans desperate for tickets to the Brummie supergroup’s last-ever gig in Birmingham have blasted touts cashing in on the historic show.

Hundreds of tickets to the February 4, 2017, show at the Genting Arena appeared for sale at inflated prices on websites BEFORE they even went on general public sale.

They had been snapped up in official “pre-sale” programmes, then immediately put back up for sale at up to double the face value.

And because the final shows sold out within hours, die-hard fans face forking out a fortune to see their heavy metal idols.

One ticket with an original face value price of £75 was being resold for £119.83, with an added £21.40 “processing fee” taking the total to £141.23.

Sabbath superfan Chris Hopkins, from Bromsgrove, has seen the band 65 times and has made five trips to the United States to see them.

He said genuine fans were being ripped off by the grey market growth of the re-sale market.

“In a way I’m glad the Sabs have come to the end so that I don’t feel compelled to try to buy any more tickets!” he said.

“Having to pay more than £100 for a ticket now is astronomical, really. The sale of tickets needs legislation to protect fans because it’s not as if we are talking about £30 tickets.

“When fans are restricted to a certain number of tickets, I don’t understand how hundreds can become available so quickly on secondary market websites.”

The official outlet for Genting Arena is The Ticket Factory, whose managing director Stuart Cain has previously said: “The faceless, online secondary market in its current form is hurting the industry.

“We don’t have an association or partnership with any secondary ticketing sites that allow ticket touts to operate and make an obscene profit out of live music fans.

“We have, however, teamed up with an ethical ticket re-seller called Twickets which offers fans the opportunity to swap and exchange tickets at face value only.”