Entertainment For Lively Minds
Calling All Touts! (again...)
Hi all
Having been greeted by deafening silence when I originally posted this, I'm making a re-request for help. This time, rather than posting it in the middle of the night when everyone was slumbering, I've opted for the make-the-plea-while-everyone-is-on-the-site-at-lunchtime tactic. Here's the original post...
I need to call upon your collective wisdom/contacts for something I'm working on at the moment. Does anyone out there have a pal or acquaintance who touts gig tickets, either operating in the old-fashioned way on street corners or doing so online? I need to get in touch with people for whom touting is their only/main source of income.
If so, could you get in touch at nigetassell at gmail dot com please? And for reasons too dull to go into here, it would be handy to know in which part of the country they operate.
And, worry ye not, all names will be changed to protect the innocent. I am neither undercover CID nor News Of The World reporter.
thanks all
Nige
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Got an oddie
for upstairs?
Double double carpet for a two at Pete Doherty? You're killing me here....
Why isn't the plural tout
like trout?
Can't you take a hint?
If I was a tout I wouldn't be advertising it on a site where people loathe touts.
If I knew a tout I'd be reporting the bastard.
In Scotland touts get physically assaulted outside football grounds and people routinely enter £1bn bid then withdraw them on ebay to wreck their trade.
We all fucking hate and despise the vermin who buy up tickets and then profit from peoples desperation.
No-one's gonnae help you. Give up.
Yeah give up
don't you know you're only allowed to talk about Morrissey and the X factor on here.
Eh?
Whits with the sarcy pish?
This guys trolling for info about the arseholes who drive up ticket prices.
No-ones biting. Good.
Whats your problem?
Trolling
Is something different altogether. This is a Word writer asking for your assistance with a piece.
As for touting, it's no longer really a blokes-outside-gigs affair. To a large extent, prices have been driven up by regular fans, who've realized they can buy four tickets, sell a pair on Seatwave or Viagogo for double face value, and effectively gain free entrance to the gig.
Thanks Fraser
Yes, I want to somehow quantify the decline of the on-street tout and the extent to which they've just been sent indoors and to their computer.
The hardcore of street touts
that you'd see at nearly every gig you went to are still there. I'm guessing they are unwilling or unable to use new technology. When I've heard them talk abouit the internet they do so in four letter words about the ordinary punter stealing their business
I've certainly...
...seen no drop-off in the number of touts outside gigs of late. In fact, at one festival I was at this summer, a pair of touts very ostentaciously set up a stall on the roadside right next to the site entrance (complete with huge TICKETS WANTED sign) and sat themselves down in deckchairs while they waited for punters to unburden themselves of unwanted tickets.
Thanks Goatboy
That I'm writing about touts does not, of course, mean I'm siding with them. Wondered for a bit just what I'd done to offend...
Actually...
Just re-read what you posted. Am not trolling at all. As one of WORD's writers, I'm simply asking the readers for any help/contacts they might be able to provide for something I'm working on at the moment. Hey ho...
And
may I say, the co-author of a very fine piece on Ian Dury a few months back.
Why...
...thank you Paddy. Some niceness comes my way!
Toutrage!
Toutrage!