Once a year, a few friends and myself scrape up some cash and head off to the Big Day Out.The line up is usually pretty good, and for about AUD $120 or thereabouts, we get to see an enormous line-up of bands. Normally about 20, if we really push it.
And this years' line up is no different. The early names announced look a little like this:
- Rage Against the Machine
- Björk
- Grinspoon
- Arcade Fire
- Hilltop Hoods
- Billy Bragg
- Paul Kelly
- LCD Soundsystem
- Sarah Blasko
- Faker
- Midnight Juggernauts
- Dizzee Rascal
- Something with Numbers
- Battles
- Cut Off Your Hands
I missed the 2007 BDO through general slackness - I just didn't get my shit together in time to buy a ticket. But it normally doesn't sell out until late December, or early January.
This year, 40,000 tickets went on sale on 12 October. And this week, it sold out.
What is disgraceful about this, is that this early exhaustion of tickets can only be driven by one thing.
Scalping.
I've been critical of concert promoters in the past. They're a disgusting lot who have the solution to scalping, but have the nerve to say that they don't have the answers. Or worse:
"We think scalpers are disgusting and we are taking steps to ensure that they don't spoil the fun for everyone else."
Or words to that effect. Which is just disgraceful lies on their part, because the answer is plain as day - put purchasers' names on the tickets.
The theory behind this is a very easy one. At the gate, when they check your ticket, they can also check to see that you're holding valid photo ID confirming that you're you.
Yet they (being promoters Lees and West) won't do it. Why not? They already confirm your ID when they verify your drinking age?
Now I have to decide if I'm going to cough up the cash and go for a scalped ticket. This is a 24 carat DISGRACE!!!™
Right now, I am really, really, pissed off and looking to take my frustrations out on something.
Maybe I'll have a barbie that day, and call it the Big Day In.
In any event, I'd love to hear any stories from anyone who has been bitten by scalpers. Or just plot some revenge.
7 comments:
Skipping scalpers for the moment - this caught my eye on the Big Day Out's promo page for Rage Against the Machine:
"Is it coincidence that in the seven years that Rage Against the Machine has been away that America has slid into right-wing purgatory? I think not," Tom Morello told MTV on the eve of the reunion. "It occurred to all of us that the times were right to see if we can knock the Bush administration out in one fell swoop, and we hope to do that job well - There is no action without reaction. And we're part of that reaction."
If RATM really thinks it's that influential, maybe they could have come back before we invaded Iraq, or before the 2004 election, or at any time at all. Just saying.
You know, I'm not sure why ticket scalping is considered so bad. In no other area of the economy do we demand that the purchaser not sell something that they own. Why so huffy about this?
Hi Ms Chris, and thanks for dropping by.
That rhetorical question of Morello's is a bit of a concern. Morello appears to think that if it wasn't for RATM, the Bush administration wouldn't have been elected. Hyperbole?
That's also a rhetorical q. And yes, RATM obviously didn't believe that it was important enough to re-form before the last two elections.
G'day Ross, and thanks for reading.
The free-marketer in me says "no" it's not a bad thing.
But this blog is all about me and I feel right pissed off to have missed out.
Plus, wouldn't it be fairer that the promoters, musicians and other staff who work on this event enjoy the profits rather than what amount to arbitrageurs? If this means that prices should be increased, than so be it.
RATM and their profitable posings remind me of Bill Hicks and his impression of the ad executive - "oh you're going after the angry market! that's a good market."
Anyone who seriously endorses a murderous thug like Che Guevara while cozy in the warm belly of Sony deserves only contempt. Fuck RATM. There needs to be a new edition of Spinal Tap just for these guys.
Anyone who seriously endorses a murderous thug like Che Guevara while cozy in the warm belly of Sony deserves only contempt. Fuck RATM.
I admit to diggin' some of RATM's stuff. But I would never in a million years support their Guevara worship. That's just wrong and sick.
Also, their thing for the Zapatista rebels in Mexico is a little bit worrying, too.
And the fithy lucre flowing from Sony at the same time... Honestly, you just want to retch.
There needs to be a new edition of Spinal Tap just for these guys.
That would be hilarious. It would be like a leftist version of Bob Roberts.
On the Guevara worship thing, I could take the Guevara t-shirts that were de rigueur a couple of years back.
But I nearly gave birth after that fad begat ones with Mao on.
Honestly, who's next - Pol Pot?
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