TIME FOR TOUTS TO TAKE THE HIGH ROAD
Furious MP Wishart calls for clampdown on scalpers as his band Runrig’s gigs are hijacked
FORMER Runrig star turned MP Pete Wishart is demanding urgent action against touts after the band’s farewell concerts were targeted.
Wishart said he had been inundated by reports from disgusted fans who had been ripped off by secondary sellers flogging tickets at vastly inflated prices.
Tickets for the celtic rockers’ two gigs in Stirling next August sold out within minutes of going on sale on Ticketmaster.
Within 12 minutes, they appeared on Ticketmaster’s secondary site Get Me In! at four times the £41 face value.
Some secondary sellers were apparently based in tax haven the British Virgin Islands and had hived off more than 100 tickets – which would be impossible for ordinary fans.
Wishart, who played keyboard with the band until being elected as an SNP MP in 2001, is backing calls for a clampdown on scalpers.
He said: “I couldn’t believe the amount of Runrig fans who got in touch with me upset, angry and frustrated.
“They have felt ripped off, cheated and betrayed by a ticketing infrastructure which is little better than a swindlers’ charter inhabited by touts and profiteers.
“It is so bad that we have primary ticketing agencies owning secondary subsidiaries, allowing touts to sell tickets at inflated prices in which the primary ticketing agency secures a secondary cut.
“The Government have been slow to act on what is a clear loophole being exploited by people with links to tax havens.
“The current situation is bad for the economy at large, as fans have less cash to spend on merchandise, hotel stays and other purchases they may have made when going to gigs.”
The Daily Record’s Stub Out The Touts campaign has exposed the rogue traders cashing in on secondary ticket selling.
Perth MP Wishart added: “The whole ticketing market for rock concerts is broken beyond repair and causing immense damage to one of our biggest export industries.”
A spokesman for Runrig, whose most famous anthem is a version of Loch Lomond, said: “We deplore the blatant exploitation by these companies. We strive to make our tickets affordable.
“We enter into an agreement with a ticket agency in good faith and to discover these same companies are reselling at absorbent prices to a subsidiary owned by them fills us with anger and frustration.”
Adam Webb, spokesman for the FanFair Alliance, said: “Week in week out, we see this systematic rip-off of UK audiences.
“In the case of Runrig, it includes tickets being resold through Ticketmaster’s Get Me In! platform via a Tortola-based company called Island 9 Holdings.”