Rolling Stones tickets on resale sites despite not selling out
Tickets for the rock stalwarts’ only Irish show of the year went on general sale from Ticketmaster yesterday at 9am, ranging in price from €70.45 to €181, not including booking fees or VIP packages.
Ticketmaster’s own Seatwave website, which sells ‘second-hand’ tickets, opened its market for Rolling Stones tickets at noon, and within an hour there were hundreds of tickets for sale, some at multiple times the face value cost.
General admission tickets for the pitch, with a €70.45 face value, sold out but appeared on Seatwave with prices ranging from €135.96 to €449 a ticket.
Upper-section seats — which were still available on general sale for €90 or €131 depending on their location — appeared on Seatwave yesterday for prices ranging from €163 to €599.
Lower-tier seats in the Cusack and Hogan Stands were still on sale on Ticketmaster for €181 last night, but Seatwave had listings ranging from €220 to €599.
None of these Seatwave prices include the website’s own fees for facilitating the transaction.
On rival resale website Viagogo, which has an office in Limerick, 10 standing tickets, with a face value of €70.45 were advertised for €879 each.
A single ticket from this seller at that price would come to more than €1,200 when fees are added.
Fine Gael TD Noel Rock, who has introduced proposed legislation that would ban selling tickets second hand at prices above face value, said such instances feel like Groundhog Day and that the touting of major events seems to happen on a weekly basis.
“If the companies charged with selling tickets wanted to stamp out this practice, they could easily have done so,” he said.
“Belgium has already successfully introduced legislation in this field. The Irish people are overwhelmingly in favour of legislation — with a recent Ireland Thinks poll showing 89% of people support this.
"The precedent is there, the support is there, now we need to step up and make this happen.
“This situation cannot continue: The ticketing industry cannot be relied upon to regulate itself.”
It is understood powers banning touting are still some way from coming into force.
Mr Rock said officials have been tasked with finding a solution. “They’ve raised concerns regarding the bill as stands. We’re working on solving it but progress is slow. We really wanted to have this done for March and thought we would, but realistically it’s now the goal to get it over line before June.”
The Irish Examiner understands that frustration at the delay in introducing the bill is growing to the point that Fianna Fáil may use private members’ time to push through legislative changes.
Wicklow TD Stephen Donnelly had worked with Mr Rock to bring through proposed legislation, and together they met with Department of Business officials last month on the issue.
