Ticket Reselling scandal continues with Blur’s Olympic Concert

The ticket reselling scandal has hit new lows today as Blur’s Olympic Closing Ceremony concert which is set to take place on August 12th in London’s Hyde Park, is the latest ticket target for touts, Music Week has reported.

Channel 4 aired a Dispatches documentary last night (February 23rd) exposing the lengths ticketing websites such as Viagogo and Seatwave go to in order to resell popular tickets at extortionate prices. This kind of ticket reselling was certainly expected for today’s ( February 24th) release of Blur tickets for their concert in Hyde Park along with The Specials and New Order but no one anticipated the magnitude of the situation. Twitter was awash with furious comments from fans about the Dispatches documentary, and has since exploded with comments as prices can now range from £86 to £1000 (tickets are originally priced at £55). With the concert months away, these prices are expected to rise as the date approaches. 

Joe Cohen, CEO of Seatwave, has been responding to these comments claiming that "Seatwave itself does not buy any tickets for resale. We do allow our employees to do so- but they can only do so under strict guidelines. Employees cannot buy or sell within business hours, or while in the Seatwave offices, nor can they use Seatwave equipment to do so." 

Viagogo has also released statements echoing these sentiments, and states that they aim to provide a "safe, secure marketplace for the buying and selling of live event tickets."