because there are more fights at football matches.

Totally agree with everything you say. As long as people keep paying it will go on though. All Ticketmaster and the artists (with very few exceptions) are really interested in is the money so the solution that brings in the most money is the best, regardless of how much it screws the consumer.

Thought I'd use the opportunity whilst working from home to get Macca tickets.

No chance. Some patronising spiv will probably babble on about supply and demand, but all it means is a load more bankers get to go out on a Christmas jolly-up (and shout all the way through), and the real fans get to wonder what might have been.

I say we storm the palace, Dr J. Who's with me?

helps that much particularly with week day evening gigs. How many times have you got a spare ticket because someone is ill or can't get a babysitter and you can pass it on to a fan or tout outside the hall.
I'm afraid it's annoying but nothing will stop this market now that internet allows people to buy and sell tickets in advance.

The only solution is to go to cheaper local gigs and to avoid the likes of the O2.

One could always take a punt on turning up without a ticket and waiting until the gig actually started and the tout price crashed before buying. I got into a couple of the Floyd 'Wall' gigs that way.

Conversely, it was always possible to offload a spare ticket to a tout and at least get *some* of your hard-earned back.

I presume Seatwave and the like are simply the modern manifestation of this? It's just the laws of supply and demand isn't it?

off by "normal" being priced out or just thwarted from by tickets but none of the measure will help fans

If you pre-book at the cinema, you swipe your credit/debit card in the machine and get your tickets. You could do the same at gigs. They have people scanning PDF barcodes at the door, just give them a cc scanner instead. This also means that it would be possible for a mate to go in your place, if you trusted them with your card.

It's all so inconsistent. At the end of July, MrsDrJ & I bought tickets for two gigs, the only two gigs we'd go to before Christmas: Joan as PoliceWoman at the Union Chapel and Fleetwood Mac at Wembley (all bases covered there). We got recurrent cards from the DX delivery people saying they'd missed us trying to deliver our tickets, we arranged for them to go to my wife's place of work, they failed to turn up, ditto at my place of work, I told them a day I'd stay at home, they couldn't do it with only 24 hours notice. So which set of tickets do you think were in this delivery black hole? That's right, those highly sought after Joan As PoliceWoman tickets, some of which were reaching face value on the resale market. The Mac tix just popped through the letterbox one day. Eventually they said the JAPW tix would be at the box office: Why couldn't we have done that in the first place? Then we missed the gig because the little one was sick. Good times!

There is no doubt that this is one of the only areas where the Internet has ended up with higher prices. I don't know what the answer is but, as you say, the promoters have the technology. I would think that one method is for the promoter to auction the tickets off then they would find their own level without the touts taking a cut.
On the other hand, at the weekend I bought my Brixton Pavement ticket without knowing that I would be able to make it but being fairly safe in the knowledge that if, for some reason, I wouldn't be able to go, I will be able to sell it on quite easily (I would normally opt for the "box office pick up" and I wasn't very happy about paying nearly a pound more for the luxury of being able to print the ticket out myself).

I think these large ticket agencies should issue you with a chip and pin ID card that has to be swiped at the door to allow entry and would also include a photo of the card holder for identity checks. They could fund this out of the so-called 'booking fee' a.k.a. money for nothing. Since the music business is all about controlling access to music the agencies et. al. should instantly understand the idea.

Alternatively support smaller local gigs.

For a long time agencies / venues seem to have been happy to trade off the money that scalpers make against the risks they run. Prices are set based on the margins that are required and the strength of anticipated demand.

It was obvious to everyone that in some cases tickets got priced at levels that made it easy for scalpers, but I've seen scalpers left with tickets they couldn't sell, or selling at less than face value. However without an easy way of getting their hands on the profit that scalpers could make, without the risk or too much cost, they left the secondary market alone. It wasn't worth their bother.

What's changed is that as agencies get screwed harder on margins by venues and probably artists too, they are looking for ways to take margin off the touts. Scalping their own shows is the obvious way forward. Sell the bulk of tickets as normal, but set aside those that appear to have some kind of premium value, and milk those for all they are worth.

Seatwave is just one part of the picture. The corporate entertainment market has been widely exploited. Agencies don't care if you don't watch the band, just as long as someone pays (and pays well) for you to get in. Ticketmaster are selling so called exclusivity packages as a company benefit - pay a small fee for early access to ticket sales and so on, as are American Express as a "value" add on to card holders.

There are lots of ways that agencies could stop resales, and auctions would provide a way of seeing the true economic value reached. The problem is that these increase costs disproportionately to the profit they will add.

Which is pretty much why I've stopped going to gigs other than local, small venues. Ticketmaster seem to be coping without me .....

It can only be a matter of time until Dutch Auctions are used to maximise the revenue for live gigs. Announce the tickets and start them at, for example with the Macca gig, £1000, then drop the price £10 every day at noon.

ps In the above world albums are free.

works well. It's been around since the early 2000s, and has been tried and tested quite a few times by myself.

"Scarlet Mist is a service to introduce buyers and sellers to one another. You can think of it a bit like a Dating Agency. We will try and introduce you to somebody. We are not a ticket agency and we do not have any tickets to sell... Tickets change hands here at face value or less. This may include legitimate booking fees. If you want to sell a ticket for more than that, please do not use our service."

http://www.scarletmist.com/default.asp

for WeGotTickets.
http://www.wegottickets.com/
You browse the site, buy tickets with CC, they send you an email, you print it off and on your night of nights present it at the box office with CC. They give you your tickets and you walk into the gig.
They are cheaper than their competitors as there are no extra fees and 'booking charges'.
Only drawback is that not all gigs are available.
The only link I have with these people is that of a satisfied customer.

just selling loads on semi-officially to secondary agencies as a revenue raiser? scandalous but who's stopping them?