The demand for tickets to Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s Australian Tour 2014 not only caused a website meltdown when the members pre-sale kickstarted earlier this week, but also saw fans fuming on the hottest tickets of town as tickets began appearing for upwards of $800 on scalping websites and online auctions.
The Frontier Touring company, who are bringing Bruce Springsteen back for his run of February 2014 arena-sized shows – just 10 months after a hugely successful April tour earlier this year – have responded to the backlash from troubled fans who flooded social media with their complaints about the Ticketek and Ticketmaster presale, as well as the surfeit of scalped tickets that have surfaced online.
Following users experiencing delays, website crashes, or checkout failures after hour-long online queues, Bruce Springsteen tickets began appearing online for exorbitant prices, ranging from $400 from sellers on Gumtree, up to $600 on eBay, and nearly $800 on the Swiss-based scalping site viagogo.
Frontier Touring have now responded to fan frustrations over the ticket touts. “We’ve had a lot of emails and questions about our stance on ticket scalping,” Frontier Touring wrote in a post on their Facebook page, “Like you, we are strongly against ticket scalping. We monitor prominent auction sites and wherever possible, we identify the seller and cancel any tickets that are in breach of our Terms Of Sale. We also set a ticket limit of 4 per purchaser, per show in the pre-sale in an effort to counteract ticket scalping.”
The statement continues:
It is worth noting that it is against the Listing Policy of these auction sites to offer products that are not physically in the seller’s possession. As the tickets to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s tour are not yet printed/delivered, any current listings are false.
We have the right to cancel any tickets we know are being sold in contravention of our Terms Of Sale – you should seriously consider whether to buy tickets from a scalper. We encourage you to only purchase tickets from our authorised ticket sellers – for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s tour, they are Ticketmaster (for Hunter Valley and Auckland) and Ticketek (for all other shows).
Love Rage Against The Machine?
Get the latest Rage Against The Machine news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
We know that Australians and New Zealanders are as passionate about music and live entertainment as we are and we believe that you shouldn’t be taken advantage of by unscrupulous individuals.”
While Frontier Touring has its own anti-scalping measures in place, it is difficult to reinforce their methods without formal legislation to track ticket sales effectively through third-party websites and on-sellers. While many ticket scalpers use bot software to ‘jump the queue‘, as Live Nation’s report earlier this year demonstrated, many are simply booted to the back of the line rather than barred from presale, the most effective method to their outdated system until Live Nation completes its $100 million upgrade of the ticketing company.
The NSW Government however, is looking at a crackdown on scalping sites through aggressive law reforms to be implemented by Premier Barry O’Farrell, based on legislative measures first proposed by State Sports Minister Graham Annesley and the Fair Trading Minister in February. The changes would give concert promoters the power to refuse entry to ticket-holders who had purchased their ticket in breach of terms and conditions – guidelines that would be controlled and enforced by the promoters themselves in an effort to prevent opportunistic scalpers from profiteering off of ridiculously inflated prices.
Of course scalpers will always be there to take advantage of the desires of fan demand, and demand for Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s return to Australia next February has proven especially fierce.
Particularly in Perth and Adelaide, after those states were denied The Boss’ live show (recently voted by Rolling Stone as the best in the world) for his April visit earlier this year, which was one of the biggest Australian tours of the year, raking in grosses of $25 million.
In lighter news, Frontier Touring have added a second date at Perth Arena to the Bruce Springsteen Australian Tour 2014 after the initial show sold out in the pre-sale. They have also announced the return of Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello for next year’s tour in the lineup for the legendary E Street Band.
Morello filled in for an absent Steve Van Zandt for the Bruce Springsteen Australian Tour 2013, which took place in April earlier this year. But Frontier adds that Morello will be on board alongside Van Zandt – that’s right, two legendary guitarists together. “Stevie Van Zandt and Tom Morello will be joining the 2014 tour which promises to be the most extensive tour of Australia and New Zealand to date,” Frontier Touring write in a statement issued this morning.
Bruce Springsteen Australian Tour 2014
General public on sale from Monday 26 August (see times below)
Fri 7 Feb – Perth | Perth Arene (All Ages)
Ticketek.com.au | Ph: 132 849 [on sale at 9am local time]
Sat 8 Feb – Perth | Perth Arena – (All Ages) **NEW SHOW**
Ticketek.com.au | Ph: 132 849 [on sale at 9am local time]
Tue 11 Feb – Adelaide | Entertainment Centre (All Ages)
Ticketek.com.au | Ph: 132 849 [on sale at 12 noon local time]
Sat 15 Feb – Melbourne | AAMI Park (All Ages)
with special guests Hunters & Collectors and Dan Sultan
Ticketek.com.au | Ph: 132 849 [on sale at 9am local time]
Wed 19 Feb – Sydney | Allphones Arena (All Ages)
Ticketek.com.au | Ph: 132 849 [on sale at 10am local time]
Sat 22 Feb – Hunter Valley | Hope Estate (All Ages)
with special guests The Rubens and Dan Sultan [on sale 10am local time]
Ticketmaster.com.au | Ph: 136 100
Wed 26 Feb – Brisbane | Entertainment Centre (All Ages)
Ticketek.com.au | Ph: 132 849 [on sale at 12 noon local time]
Sat 1 Mar – Auckland | Mt Smart Stadium (All Ages)
with special guest Jimmy Barnes
Ticketmaster.co.nz | Ph: 0800 111 999 [on sale at 9am local time]
