Radiohead Annoying Fans with Paperless Ticketing Issues in the UK
Friday, September 28, 2012 at 9:14AM
Like the airline industry, the concert industry has been moving away from old-fashioned paper tickets for some time now. But there are still some big bugs in the system. The Guaridan has a story in their "Consumer Affairs" section on the matter:
Radiohead and Ticketmaster have been accused of introducing an unfair ticket system that punishes fans who can no longer make it to the band's sell-out concerts.
In an attempt to stop touts buying vast numbers of tickets and selling them on at a profit, Radiohead decided to use a "paperless ticketing" policy for their shows at Manchester Arena on 6 October and London's O2 Arena on 8-9 October.
Tickets for the gigs went on sale via Ticketmaster in March, and can only be collected at the venue on the day of the show by the person who bought them. The credit or debit card used to buy them must be presented on the day, as well as additional ID.
However, since shelling out for tickets, many Radiohead fans have found they are unable to go because of unexpected work or other commitments, and are unable to sell the tickets back to Ticketmaster, or give them to friends or family members. Others have had tickets bought for them by well-meaning parents and are unable to collect them because they are not in their name.
Reader Comments (4)
That's exactly what Jack White did for the two shows at the Sony Centre next week. It's clear when you buy them that these are the stipulations, and it's great for beating touts!
There is a very simple solution to this whole problem. Rather than eliminate the resale market, Ticketmaster should create and control it via their website. Simply put, if you can't make a paperless ticket event, you can resell your tickets on Ticketmaster's website at the same cost you purchased them at (they could create a very basic, easy to use platform to do so). If someone purchases your tickets, they have to pay through the Ticketmaster website as per any normal transaction. Ticketmaster then “refunds” your money (less a service charge of course) and you're tickets are gone. There should even be a function where you can directly send a URL to a friend who will be purchasing the tickets from you or for a quick link to post the resale on Facebook/Twitter/G+/whatever...
No inflation, no irritation and Ticketmaster makes more money. Why hasn’t this been done already?
I HATED my experience with Ticketmaster Canada paperless tickets for the Black Keys / Shins at Molson Amphitheater.
I had my bank mail me a new credit card, not at my request. This caused all sorts of problems.
I called Ticketmaster Canada and they "switched my card" to gain access to the event. This meant that I actually had to purchase the tickets a second time and wait for a credit back on my original purchase. This took 5 days.
The paperless tickets were only for the section that I was in. If you bought lawn seats, you got a ticket. If you were on the floor VIP section, you got a ticket. The lines for the ticketed customers were flowing and empty. The Paperless lines were long and an additional wait.
So, were there scalpers there? Yes. Could you walk up and buy a ticket from a guy standing at the gate? Yes. I saw this waiting in the Paperless ticket line.
Who loses in this situation? The customer that bought the tickets online.
If a company want to do paperless for a Jeff Mangum show so that tickets don't reach $5000 on ebay, fine. Just figure out a way not to screw the regular customers that want tickets for an event and have to buy them from one monopolistic source.
the problem with this is the fact now we have to stand in line to get tickets than stand in line to go to your seat or just in to the venue more lines suck big nut