£3,000 for two Potter tickets

FANS tempted to pay up to £3,000 for two seats at the sold-out Harry Potter play were yesterday warned their tickets may be void.

Touts use software to saturate ticketing websites with ‘buy’ requests, using false identities to buy vast numbers of seats before selling them on for a massive profit.

But a spokesman for the play – Harry Potter And The Cursed Child – warned theatre-goers would be refused entry if they could not provide the credit or debit card used to purchase the ticket, or a confirmation email.

It comes as resale website StubHub has listed a pair of tickets for the two-part play at £2,999, nearly 50 times the cost of a £30 ticket – the cheapest available.

Another site, Viagogo, has also listed one ticket at £1,150 to see the play in London’s West End this Thursday.

Labour’s former culture spokesman Chris Bryant, said yesterday: ‘Ticket touts add absolutely nothing to the arts in this country. They are just leeches sucking the blood out of fans and artists alike. It’s time we changed the law to put a stop to it.’

The script of the play was released at midnight on Saturday with fans queuing through the night to get a copy.

Foyles bookstore said the script was the ‘fastest-selling book we’ve ever sold’, while Waterstones said sales ‘had surpassed all expectations’.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is set 19 years on from where JK Rowling’s final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, leaves off and follows the adventures of Harry’s youngest son, Albus Severus.

It is based on a story by Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany.

A spokesman for Viagogo said re-selling tickets or giving tickets away was perfectly legal.