Frontier Touring teams up with Twickets to combat scalping

Ticket scalping has to be the single biggest issue on the lips of the music industry in 2017, with an argument to be made that it’s the inevitable result of a deeply-flawed system, built around supposedly legitimate resale facilities that are in fact undermining the whole touring industry.

While some insist that scalping will always be a part of live music, Frontier Touring are doing what they can to push against the tide. Having prepared as best they could for the ridiculous resale prices that were bound to hit the Midnight Oil world tour earlier this year, they’re now concerning themselves with the equally-insane markups that have seen tickets to Ed Sheeran’s Australian tour jump into the thousands.

As his new Perth show sold out all of its 55,000 tickets within the hour, the touring company announced today that together with Twickets they’re launching an official method of selling tickets on to new fans at cost price – one that will rely on principled ticket-holders to make it work.

Frontier + @edsheeran have teamed up with @Twickets to allow ticketholders to sell spare tix at original face value: https://t.co/lUQ8o6mmca pic.twitter.com/JCuHiHpBTc

— Frontier Touring (@frontiertouring) May 24, 2017

Sure, there are a few downsides to this, in that anyone looking for a ticket will have to hope that another fan not only gives up their spot, but chooses to resist the temptation to make a profit out of it. Also, it doesn’t manage to get any of the tickets that were purchased in bulk by ticket bots out of the hands of scalpers, who will continue to offer them at ridiculous prices.

With Viagogo announcing that at one stage today 90,000 people were looking for Ed Sheeran tickets on the website, a small number of sales between fans will ultimately be a drop in the ocean, but it’s a move that should be encouraged all the same.

Meanwhile, fans are mostly hoping to see even more dates added to the tour, which would open up tens of thousands of tickets and devalue touts’ purchases in one move.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.