Some research on seatwave and other secondary marketplace ticket sites shows that a frankly tiny percentage of tickets are sold significantly above face value, however the ones that are obviously get a lot more media coverage as these are the concerts that attract mass media attention. If you spend an hour (as I have in the past) looking at such sites you will find that there are many many more performances with tickets that are cheaper than face value.

As such these sites, such as seatwave and to a lesser extent smaller sites like viagogo and getmein provide a valuable service to distribute tickets for thousands of performances between genuine fans in a guaranteed and safe environment.

The supply of tickets at £30 is reduced by ticket touting. It is reduced by all those practices which allow ticket touting to exist. The amount of tickets available at £30 to general fandom is decreased by people purchasing or acquiring multiple tickets and hanging on in order to hike up the price.

If touting was outlawed and ticket selling practices were tightened, then by definition more people would be able to purchase tickets at their original price. Not everyone will see the concert because a venue can only hold so many people – but at least we wouldn’t be predisposing attendance in favour of those who can afford £180 against those who can’t.

You are the one who said they should cost £30, not me. It’s in your article.

The supply of tickets isn’t reduced by charging £180 for them – assuming the market clears. Reducing the ticket price to £30 will not increase venue sizes and it voluntarist nonsense to suggest otherwise.

I’m not defending ticket touting – I’m asking you what the alternative means of supply would be. You obviously cannot answer.

What I’m objecting to is the practice of reducing the supply of tickets via the normal manner at the normal price, then adding massive surcharges which push out people who can’t afford the extortionate price of £180 to see a concert that might otherwise have cost them £30.

In this objection I’m operating within the parameters of capitalism, and within the parameters set by the fact that each performer sets their own concert dates and each venue can only hold X number of people. The only measure that needs be taken is to increase the supply by making illegal the practice of ticket touting.

Why *should* they cost £30?

These are interesting arguments but if the left’s answer is that the price should be lower there then needs to be some other way of rationing access – as we cannot all fit in the venue.

Die hard fans, and not wealthy ones either, might argue that paying more to see their hero is better than paying less but never getting in because the odds in the rationing system (a lottery?) are stacked against them.