7 January 2008
A committee of MPs will warn this week that concert goers and sports fans need better protection from ticket touts.
Websites such as eBay, and the new breed of ticket exchanges, such as Viagogo and Seatwave, are set to be pressured by MPs on the Culture Select Committee to ensure that prices are not artificially inflated and to prevent sales of fake tickets.
Some tickets sell out in minutes but then later become available on the Internet at higher prices almost immediately. Yesterday, tickets for a Radiohead concert in London in June with a face value of £42.50 were on sale on exchanges at between £66.50 and £139 - a mark-up of between 56 per cent and 227 per cent.
According to Tixdaq the value of online touting doubled to an estimated £200 million in 2007.
As there is little expectation of formal government intervention the MPs are calling for the emerging industry to police itself.
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