You can’t always get what you want, but sellers are charging £800 for it
Tickets for this weekend’s Rolling Stones gig in Edinburgh are being sold at more than four times their face value by touts.
One pair of tickets in the upper west stand is currently for sale on auction site ebay at £823.95 – the same tickets would cost £179.50 through the official site.
With the band returning to the venue they first played nearly 20 years ago still to sell out, fans are being urged to check prices before they buy.
“It’s a dysfunctional system,” said Adam Webb, campaign manager for Fanfair Alliance. “There are still tickets available at face value but people are getting misled.”
Hefty prices are charged when tickets are sold on “secondary sites” which add a premium to the cover price.
The Get Me In website was selling a pair of £179.50 tickets for £251.68 yesterday – a markup of 40 per cent.
Viagogo were selling the same for £212, an 18 per cent increase, while Seatwave were charging £294.76, a 64 per cent hike.
A fourth site, Stubhub, was selling similar tickets for £240 – a 34 per cent increase on the cover price.
Mr Webb urged fans to follow a ten-point online advice guide available on the Fanfair Alliance website when buying tickets.
“Don’t trust search engines,” said Mr Webb. “Because they pay big service fees for their pay per click ratings. And go to the artists’ websites which will have ways to buy their tickets.”
No offers had been made for the £823.95 tickets on ebay last night.
Saturday’s concert will be the band’s seventh appearance in Edinburgh – their first was back in 1964 at the Usher Hall.
They have played Murrayfield once before, in 1999, as part of their Bridges to Babylon world tour.
The second part of the Stones No Filter tour will see fans treated to hits such as Paint It Black and Brown Sugar. Fans are being urged to turn up early amid tight security following last year’s Manchester Arena terror attack. Security staff will be conducting searches with concert goers urged to only bring small bags.