Adele’s war on ticket touts

Her plan to stop profiteers selling on concert seats for thousands

ADELE has declared war on greedy ticket touts in a move that could see fans who buy seats at huge mark-ups barred from her sell-out shows.

Only buyers whose names are printed on their tickets are guaranteed admission to her four concerts at Wembley Stadium next July.

And the only way to change the name is to use one official re-seller that does not let sellers offer tickets for more than their face value.

This means that fans who pay vast sums for second-hand tickets risk having them cancelled or being turned away at the gates.

Tickets for the 90,000-capacity venue sold out in 11 minutes yesterday but they were immediately available on resale sites such as Viagogo and Stubhub, which are routinely used by touts.

Sellers are asking thousands of pounds more than the face value of £45 to £95, with some demanding an astonishing £6,599 for one seat.

But in a determined move to crush the greedy touts, the charttopping singer’s website says that the only resold tickets eligible for entry will be those exchanged at face value using a fan-friendly site called Twickets.

A note on the official page for her Wembley dates on June 28, 29 and July 1 and 2 says: ‘Adele ticket holders who can no longer attend a show may sell them on to other fans through Twickets at no more than the price they originally paid.’

And Twickets owner Richard Davies said yesterday: ‘Venues will only accept resale tickets where the person’s name matches the name on the tickets. The only place you can legitimately change the name on the ticket is on Twickets.’

The names of original buyers are printed on tickets but to make the new policy work, security staff will have to check IDs against bank cards, driving licences or other documents. If the names fail to match, doormen will have to be ordered to deny entry because the ticket holder is suspected of using a site Adele is attempting to penalise.

Adele is the biggest star to take such a firm stand. She has branded touts as ‘terrible people’ and earlier this year her managers called for ticket profiteering to be illegal.

MPs are also considering outlawing the use of ‘bots’ — software that lets touts hoover up hundreds of tickets in a matter of seconds.

MP Nigel Adams, a member of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, said: ‘I’m very pleased that Adele has taken this stance — it is one step towards thwarting industrial ticket touts that are ripping off genuine fans.

‘I would encourage other artists to take Adele’s lead.’

Sales giant Ticketmaster, which owns the resale websites GetMeIn! and Seatwave, has been accused of passing event tickets directly to its subsidiaries in return for a cut.

Yesterday both sites refrained from listing Adele’s tickets in an apparent bid to appease critics.

Last month industry expert Reg Walker told MPs that re-sale sites actively recruit touts by giving them ‘privileged access’ to special computer programmes that let them put hundreds of tickets up for re-sale at the click of a button.

Ticketmaster is also accused of profiteering by potentially pocketing more than £600 on tickets sold by touts for Phil Collins concerts.

When seats for his tour sold out in seconds, fans were redirected to Get Me In! where £55 to £175 tickets were on sale for up to £2,200.

The firm takes a huge cut on the mark-up for each ticket. The Daily Mail found that for each £2,200 ticket sold, it would claim £611.59.

‘Ripping off genuine fans’