Midnight Oil unveil plans to slow down scalpers and stop tickets being resold for exorbitant prices

MIDNIGHT Oil has declared war on scalpers and will introduce a raft of initiatives to hinder them securing tickets to their concerts in Australia.

Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil fame wants to stop scalpers from ripping music fans off.

MIDNIGHT Oil has declared war on scalpers and will introduce a raft of initiatives in an attempt to hinder them securing tickets to The Great Circle concerts in Australia.

Partnering with Frontier Touring, the band will employ some old-school measures and work with the British exchange site Twickets, which allows fans to resell tickets they can’t use at face value.

Frontman Peter Garrett said he was shocked by the explosion in the ticket resale market and the huge mark-ups fans faced to buy tickets to sold out shows.

“Scalping has become a monumental rip-off. It’s urgent that we rein in low-life companies and individuals profiteering from music lovers by this disgusting practice,” he said.

Drummer Rob Hirst suggested some of their diehard fans may sleep overnight outside box offices to guarantee their access to the best seats.

MORE: Midnight Oil to take on Donald Trump on first world tour in decades

Jim Moginie, Rob Hirst, Peter Garrett, Martin Rotsey and Bones Hillman announced The Great Circle 2017 tour on Sydney Harbour on Friday. Picture: Jenny Evans

The Oils’ manager John Watson said the measures would be a “speed hump” to bots, which can snap up dozens of tickets in seconds.

The old-school approach by the hugely popular band would be familiar to fans who went to their concerts throughout the 1980s and ‘90s before the majority of tickets were sold online.

Only paper tickets will be available, which will please fans who regard them as souvenirs of the gig.

There will be caps on how many tickets can be bought, with a limit of four to six tickets for the pre-sales depending on the gig and 10 for the general sale.

The buyer’s name and address, which must match the details of the credit card used, will be printed on the tickets.

They will be posted to that address in August, two months before the Australian leg of the tour starts, which will also limit the ability of scalpers to resell tickets on unapproved secondary sites.

The last time Garrett fronted Midnight Oil for the Sound Relief concerts he was still an MP. Picture: Tim Carrafa.|.

“It is easy for someone to have 100 email addresses and multiple credit cards but not as easy to have 100 post office boxes,” Watson said.

“You can monitor the addresses and if there are multiple tickets going to one address, then we can look at other action.”

Watson said the philosophy behind delaying supplying tickets until August 1 was that it made it harder for scalpers to trade them online at exorbitant prices because they did not physically have them.

“All the things we are doing are creating speed humps to slow down scalpers who have so much tech resources and give them less of an advantage,” he said.

After fans receive their tickets, those who suddenly find themselves unable to go to the concert or have spares will be able to sell them for face value on Twickets.

Ed Sheeran was not happy when he discovered fans were being charged thousands of dollars for tickets to sold-out shows. Picture: Jonathan Ng

It is the first time the British ticket exchange platform will work with an Australian band after partnering with Adele and Ed Sheeran for their UK tours.

Sheeran was furious at touts who were attempting to sell $125 seats for $1600 after his concerts sold out within minutes.

Twickets only allows fans to trade their tickets for what they paid for them. In the case of Midnight Oil, a $100 ticket would be sold for $120, with $100 returned to the seller, $10 to the site for administration costs and the other $10 donated to Indigenous charities.

Frontier Touring COO Dion Brant said Twickets, unlike other resale sites such as Viagogo or StubHub, is partnering with artists and their representatives in an attempt to control touting and level the playing field for fans wanting to buy and sell tickets.

“We have done our research with agents and managers in the UK and we believe this is a legitimate channel that legitimate customers who have been stuck with tickets and are looking to get their money back can use,” he said.

“That removes the last excuse for the Viagogos of the world that they help people stuck with tickets to sell them. Then they are just in it to profit from the situation.”

Midnight Oil are determined to put concert tickets in the hands of fans and not scalpers. Picture: Supplied.

The Oils’ action comes as political pressure mounts for a ban on “bots”, which snap up dozens of tickets to popular concerts which are then offered for grossly inflated prices on resale sites within minutes of a gig selling out.

News Corp Australia has learnt a motion will be put to the Senate next month for it to demand that the Government draft laws similar to those recently passed by US Congress making it illegal to use software to purchase tickets to popular events.

The notice of motion, lodged by Senator Nick Xenophon, says “ticket scalping and the use of software to bypass computer security systems to purchase large numbers of tickets has a detrimental impact on genuine fans that often miss out or have to pay hugely inflated prices for events”.

Peter Garrett wants to stop scalpers from ripping music fans off. Picture: Supplied

A report last year by New York’s Attorney General found a single broker obtained more than 1000 U2 tickets in one minute using bots despite the vendor having a four-ticket limit.

The motion says that while there is a benefit in having a secondary market place for consumers to onsell tickets when they have a legitimate reason to do so, “many consumers are not aware that they are buying from a secondary market site as the business practices of many of those sites have the potential to mislead or deceive consumers in relation to their purchase, resulting in consumers purchasing tickets that are not genuine or at a vastly inflated price”.

Senator Xenophon has previously urged the Government to cap the resale price at no more than 10 per cent above face value.

The pre-sale for the Midnight Oil concerts begins on Thursday with general tickets available on February 27.

Originally published as Midnight Oil unveil plans to slow down scalpers and stop tickets being resold for exorbitant prices