True fans at the mercy of soul-less ticket touts

Many ticket outlets offer pre-sale to past customers for big names and popular shows. But guess who are likely to be their most loyal customers – touts! Soul-less, immoral money-makers who are ripping the heart out of live music by forcing up ticket prices beyond the reach of many true fans.

Armed with a pre-sale code or using a special link, the chosen ones can buy tickets, usually limited to between four and six, at face value and then sell them on a variety of websites for outrageous sums. Not to mention the additional fees that these sites charge sellers and buyers, further bumping up the ticket price.

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They do so knowing many fans, not so savvy in the art of ticket buying, will have been unable to grab one of the limited number left for general sale and will probably pay up. Some artists, admirably, offer pre-sale tickets to members of their fan club first. But a seasoned tout is more than happy to spend a few quid on fan club membership when confident they could double that cash on the first ticket sale.

And it isn't just the professional ticket raiders that are taking advantage of the system. Artists are now getting in on the act.

Earlier this year, eager to get tickets to see The Script in Birmingham, I bought their album in order to get pre-sale codes – twice! There are five of us and the code was limited to four tickets! But my worst experience was last month when I wanted tickets for the forthcoming tour of The Vamps – don't judge me! With my daughter's birthday approaching, and having failed to get tickets for 5 Seconds of Summer on general sale, the pressure was on to get Vamps tickets. So I succumbed, I forked out for their CD and paid the extra £3 for a pre-sale code.

Convinced of some exclusivity, I was mortified when I logged on at 6pm on November 2 to find myself trapped in a 'virtual waiting room' for more than 20 minutes. During this time, all of the available 'A price' tickets disappeared before my eyes.

There are lots of people making money out of the pre-sale system – touts, websites, promoters, bands. And they are making money at the expense of one group of people – true music fans like you and me.