Iron Maiden take a stand at inflated ticket prices

With IRON MAIDEN recently announcing a huge arena tour of the UK next year, the band have now detailed plans to combat the resale of tickets at extremely inflated prices.

The plans also aim to eliminate fraudulent tickets and allowing real fans to buy tickets at the normal price. This has been a growing problem in the UK as many major tours are sold out in minutes, only for large quantities of tickets to appear at two or three times the price. Speaking about the initiative the band’s manager, Rod Smallwood, says, “we do not want our fans being ripped off either by counterfeit tickets or through costly mark-ups on so called secondary ticketing websites. These problems now affect the UK more than any other country outside of the U.S.A. We believe the most successful way to prevent this is by implementing Paperless ticketing. This proved highly successful in reducing piracy at our previous London shows in 2013 and on our North American tours since 2010. This is a simple procedure and goes a long way to minimising the resale of tickets and reducing fraud by requiring the original cardholder purchaser to be present at entry. We have been working with our UK promoter Live Nation and Ticketmaster to ensure that we can operate a Paperless ticketing system, in full or in part, at all the UK venues we’ll play in 2017. We are also instigating a number of additional measures which we believe will directly help our fans to access tickets in the fairest, safest way and at the intended price.”

Their plans for their 2017 tour include:

• Ensuring that every venue will operate Paperless ticketing, either 100% or partial.
• Working in co-operation with Live Nation and Ticketmaster, Paperless ticketing means that the original cardholder is required to present their debit or credit card and photographic ID at the point of entry with their guest(s).
• Setting Conditions of Purchase so that tickets are not for resale. Ensuring to the best of our abilities, in conjunction with Live Nation and Ticketmaster, that secondary ticketing sites are prevented from listing our shows and to invalidate tickets should any appear on these secondary sites.
• Setting a maximum limit of 4 (four) tickets per person per show.
• To use Purchaser Names on tickets where they are not paperless and to require the cardholder to be present at the show, with picture ID.
• A dedicated team to monitor ticket sales in real-time throughout the exclusive Iron Maiden Fan Club pre-sale, any other pre-sales and the general public on sale to ensure that ticket limits are being imposed and all suspicious activity is reported and investigated.
• A dedicated customer support team on hand to deal with any issues from fans with legitimate problems.
• Being aware of criminals and their methods to infiltrate our best practices and having the conviction to retrospectively cancel their inventory. This is especially in respect of automated bots and multiple card efforts which are used to garner large numbers of tickets at the onsale to the detriment of the fans.
• Reinforcing the message that if you buy a ticket from an unauthorised source, it will be either invalid or counterfeit. Do not become a victim.

The band have long been committed to preventing this ticket abuse, and support The Fanfair Alliance whose purpose is to unite all members of the music community; artists, fans, and music businesses, against ticket touting. For more information see their website.

IRON MAIDEN will tour the UK in May next year. Tour dates are as follows:

May 04             England                       Nottingham, Motorpoint Arena
May 06             Ireland                         Dublin, 3arena
May 08             England                       Manchester, Arena
May 10             England                       Sheffield, Arena
May 11             England                       Leeds, First Direct Arena
May 14             England                       Newcastle, Metro Radio Arena
May 16             Scotland                      Glasgow SSE Hydro Arena
May 17             Scotland                      Aberdeen, AECC GE Oil & Gas Arena
May 20             England                       Liverpool, Echo Arena
May 21             England                       Birmingham, Barclaycard Arena
May 24             Wales                           Cardiff, Motorpoint Arena
May 27             England                       London, O2 Arena

For more information on IRON MAIDEN like their official page on Facebook.