Big Pay Out!

With tickets to the Big Day Out music festival going on sale in just a few days I’m bracing myself for the inevitable torrent of slang-ridden MySpace bulletins cursing scalpers, and blaming everything from alarms clocks to online queues for denying one’s God-given right to acquiring tickets.

Spare me the sob stories. I’ve seen it all. Well, almost.

You see, in yet another attempt to circumvent scalpers and online reselling, the organisers of the festival have imposed a limit of two tickets per customer for the Sydney leg, held January 25 at Homebush. In the other five cities, punters will be able purchase up to four tickets at a time.

I don’t know just how good an idea this is. While the line-up this year is actually almost worth paying for, and I hate getting ripped off as much as the next person, it is a no-brainer that the festival will sell out and, yes, hearts will be broken, friendships expired etc. What I’m saying is, I much prefer a bit of people power!

An article published in the Sydney Morning Herald, entitled Fans sabotaging scalpers' auctions, claims “music fans, incensed at the apparent inaction by governments, event promoters and eBay in preventing ticket scalping, are taking matters into their own hands.”

Enraged fans, blinded by their own fury, are actively sabotaging auctions by placing fake bids seconds before they close. With very little legislation protecting us genuine fans from these dirty dealers – their actions being the very definition of un-Australian – obviously eBay, the bastion of free trade, is where we should vent our anger!

Seriously, what can be done? They’re talking about sending unique barcodes to buyers’ mobile phones but I’ve seen first-hand the trouble that even Moshtix - a relatively tame form of digital ticketing - can cause.

Is this a case of technology proving just as much a hindrance as a help? I even miss those middle-aged pommy geezers spruiking tickets outside the venue. Oh, the still exist. Somewhere in this digital world…