Whether Take That or Led Zeppelin will be glad to know that their tickets were the most in-demand on ticket auction websites last year I'm not sure. It's nice to be wanted, of course, but the promoters of Take That's tour and the much hyped Led Zepp reunion show won't be happy that online touts have been benefiting so much from the demand for tickets, especially as the latter was a charity concert.
According to research firm Tixdaq, 'second-hand' tickets to Take That concerts being sold on the 25 biggest resale websites generated £12.8 million last year. Led Zepp, meanwhile, enjoyed the highest average resale ticket price for their much in-demand one off show at London's The O2, with tickets reselling for £707.97.
Other highly priced resale tickets included two Paul McCartney shows - tickets for his relatively intimate (for him) gig at the BBC's Electric Proms had an average resale ticket price of £498.14 while his show at The Liverpool Sound had an average resale price of £330.
Tixdaq's Will Muirhead said that their research of online ticket touting demonstrated what a big deal secondary ticketing had become, adding: "No wonder artists are concerned that they do not generally share in the proceeds".
As much previously reported, various music industry types, most notably tour promoters, artist managers and some politicians, have expressed concern at punters profiting so highly from ticket resales and, perhaps more importantly, from the auction websites profiting by taking a commission. As also previously reported, the topic will be discussed at the next MusicTank Think Tank event in London on 18 Mar, follow this URL for more information on that:
http://www.musictank.co.uk/events/ticket-touting-going-going-gone