Organisers of Radio 1's Big Weekend, due to take place in Dundee this weekend, are warning that ticket touts are trying to sell invalid backstage passes via - surprise, surprise - eBay.
Both standard tickets and a back stage pass for the Big Weekend are up for auction on the website. The former, which were given away free to listeners, are going for over £100, while bids for the back stage pass have exceeded £7000, though there is some doubt over whether those are real bids.
Organisers of the event said that they discouraged the buying of tickets via auction websites, though they admitted there was little they could do to stop people from selling on tickets in this way. The back stage pass, however, has been invalidated and the seller alerted to that fact, so if anyone does buy it they may well be disappointed when they arrive at the venue.
Commenting on the ticket auctions, a Radio 1 spokesman told reporters yesterday: "Obviously Radio 1 is totally against people profiting from what is a free music event. Unfortunately with all major ticketed events there is the chance that people will auction tickets off."