Ticket Touts - A New Age

I am convinced that ticket touts are legal and that promoters are not bothered so long as they get their cash.

This week I set out to buy tickets to see Queens of the Stone Age, in November. My mobile provider 02 very kindly told me that as a customer I could get pre-sale tickets on Wednesday, so at 08:58 I started out on my quest for 4 tickets - F5, F5, F5 until 9 o'clock - enter 4, enter standing, enter 2 security words, press Buy Tickets - "sorry nothing matches your selection', so I tried 3 tickets, 2 tickets and 1 ticket - still nothing. Great, how can that be?

So on Wednesday I learned that Live Nation will have pre-sale tickets on Thursday, so at 08:58 - F5,F5,F5 etc - guess what - NO FRIGGING TICKETS!!!!!

Friday morning rolls around and its time to join the queue that is lovingly known as General release. 08:58 and full of anticipation - F5,F5,F5 - guess what - NO FRIGGING TICKETS!!!!!

So my only choices now would be (1) Ticket tout on the day - who will rip me off with hugely inflated (and possibly illegal tickets) or (2) Ticket sell on companies - who will again sell me highly price inflated tickets. Generally I don't visit these sites for a few days because I am (a) frustrated at not securing tickets when I wanted to and (b) I know I will have to fork out probably twice the price.

Having been disappointed and frustrated about not getting tickets I broke the norm and went off in search of tickets on the World Wide Web - on the day of release - and to my amazement Ticket sell on companies Viagogo and Getmein already had hundreds of tickets for resale by 09:10. How is this possible? unless its just ticket touting on a legal, grand and on line scale.

Are ticket companies simply passing tickets on to sell on companies (bear in mind that Getmein is owned by Ticketmaster)? I also love the tagline of Getmein 'TICKETS FOR TRUE FANS'.

Viagogo are owned by a Venture Capitalist firm called Index Ventures who are a Swiss company set up primarily in the IT and Life Sciences sectors, so how can a company like this this be allowed to Venture it's Capital in ripping people off?

The law for selling football tickets has changed, where touts cannot legally do this for a profit, so why not music and theatre tickets?

That said I have paid for my tickets now and am happy I could get what I wanted.
I am just annoyed that I have had to pay through the nose for those tickets, that have not been bought by people who then cannot attend the gig, that are simply big companies making lots of money off the back of True Fans.