The government again blustered about the growth of ticket touting yesterday, and then announced a grand plan to do, erm, nothing. Oh, they're going to have a consultation. Because if there's one thing we need, it's another consultation on this. Did the government even read John Whittingdale's parliamentary select committee report on this very issue last year?
The no doubt expensive consultation will involve talking to consumers, promoters and ticket sellers about the growth of so called secondary ticketing - when companies and individuals buy up tickets for in demand events and then resell them for profit, normally online via secondary ticketing resale and auction sites.
The government is bothered that genuine music fans end up paying more money than they need to for tickets, and that some secondary sellers take money for tickets they don't actually have and can't always deliver.
The live industry, of course, gets pissed off that secondary sellers can often earn more on a ticket resale than they do on the original sale, even though a reseller has no other costs. Some also fear that the extra money spent on the hiked up secondary ticket means the punter will spend less on other tickets or live music related purchases, so that the live sector overall loses out.
And don't get a gig promoter started on the companies who own the resale websites and who are building their entire business on the commissions from resale transactions, you'll be there for sometime.
The government's consultation will look into some of the ways employed by promoters to make it harder for touts to buy up substantial numbers of (or in some cases any) tickets for in demand events, and also at proposals that the Society For Ticket Agents And Retailers introduce a kitemark style system whereby they vet primary and secondary ticketing sites.
The dodgy sites where tickets often don't really exist when money exchanges hands wouldn't get the mark, so (more aware) customers would know not to use them.
All of which is lovely, though Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe, who is leading all this (the growth of ticket touting being an issue in sport as well as music) was again clear that new laws to govern touting are not on the agenda - he'd prefer event promoters to introduce measures to reduce the impact of touts themselves.
Which is what makes the whole government review pointless to me, because promoters who care about things like this (Michael Eavis, Harvey Goldsmith etc) are already introducing those measures, while the rest won't want to make the cash investment such measures require.
If the government aren't going to introduce new laws, then they are wasting everyone's time getting involved, other than, perhaps, backing the proposed STAR kitemark system.
Still, it gave Sutcliffe an good excuse to buy a new suit and to preach to us all thus: "Real efforts are being made by some event organisers to thwart the touts and ensure that as many tickets as possible go straight to real fans. But most of the time tickets go to whoever is quickest online on the day they go on sale - and too much of the time that is touts who simply want to resell at a profit".
"The industry now needs to quickly build on these successful new approaches and ensure they become much more widespread. An honest and transparent resale market can be beneficial; it provides fans with an opportunity to buy tickets for sold-out events or sell tickets they can no longer use".