illegal ticket sellers

Ok, so I found out that Dave Matthews is coming to europe. Now regardless of what anyone else thinks I love his music and have wonated to see him live for quite a few years now.

Due to the fact that he and his band aren't as big over here he only plays one day at a small venue in Amsterdam.

Tickets went on sale at 10 am last saturday.

Sold out at 10:15 and I only managed to get two....

There were five of us that wanted to go.

So I start looking on some secondhand website to find out if anyone has miscaculated the number of tickets that they need.

What do I see? People having loads of tickets and already selling them for over twice to price. Now mind you it's only been 2 days since they've been available.

So I write someone and give them an offer of 10 euro's over the normal price per ticket.

He write me back and starts acting all offended as if I'm joking.

Now I don't know about you but for someone who hasn't put ANY effort into something (simply buying 10 extra tickets doesn't take much out of a man) is not someone that I'm willing to pay that amount of money.

I hate it when people do stuff like that. I was supposed to buy 3 more tickets and because of people like that I couldn't.

Sorry, just a little rant since it might well be the ONLY time he comes over to europe in my lifetime.

1) Call the concert hall, ask for their houserules, the ticketowners are bound to those.
2) Ask a written 'invoice'/confirmation of price from the seller, if it's more than the regular price and the concert hall's rules prohibit it, contact them and the police/ministry of internal affairs.
3) ???
4) Profit!! :D

already wrote a letter to the company selling the original tickets. I don't think it'll help but hey! I've gotta try.

try to find someone with lots of tickets for sale (and I mean lots like a few hundred) from that moment on he's no longer considered a 'person' but a 'business' instead and there are different rules for that (read easier to punish :p )

LOL twice the price is nothing here in the US. I have seen $100.00 tickets go for over $1000.00 each with a 4 ticket minimum. I hate it as well, so I just go see the up and coming bands in the small venues. I know this doesnt really help you with your problem, but if I could get tickets for twice the price, I would actually still go see concerts, so its really not that bad even though it is dirty and underhanded. But you have to realize that the ticket companies cater to this type of business, thats why they getso many tickets to sell. Most of the great tickets are actually sold out before they even go on sale, that annoys me more than anything.

Alex,

I don't know the guy but if he is not that popular here you may want to wait and see whether last minute you can make a better deal. Sometimes ticket tout need to cut their losses.

Good luck!

I already found one more person that wasn't trying to rip me off and bought two ticktes from him for a hogher than normal price but only slightly...actually exactly the price that I offered the first guy. I'm excited, just one more now.

The solution to your problem is easy. Just have the last member of your quintet dress up as Dave Matthews. You think they are going to lock him out of his own show?!

Turned out that person WAS asking the same outragous amount...so looks like therell only be two of us that are going.

Yeah this anoys the hell out of 90% of people IMO, just a pain that tickets sell so quick i have been looking latley for shows/concerts my self (faithless,Lord of the dance and Blue man group) some of the sites have started to crack down on this by only allowing 4-6 tickets per credit or debit card to be purchased if you want more you have to phone the venue/orgganisers and order group tickets but these have to be used together as it is one ticket that costs the price of 6 or whatever would normally cost. I think this is an excellent step in the right direction for Ticket auctioning but it will by no means stop the overpricing.