With less than two weeks until the beloved Meredith Music Festival kicks off its 2013 edition, a local politician has called for a crackdown on ticket scalping for the long-running music event.
With all tickets to this year’s edition once again completely sold out, and the set times locked in, David O’Brien, a Member for Western Victoria, has put forward the call to address the issue of ticket touts taking advantage of the popularity of the award-winning festival, according to the Meredith region politician’s own website.
Mr O’Brien has called for an investigation into possible legal action against ticket scalpers targeting Meredith, including a Parliamentary request to examine ways to safeguard the annual event from scalpers.
“The organisers of the Festival have brought this to my attention and it seems to be an on-going problem,” explains Mr O’Brien, who applauds the festival as it enters its 23rd year. “This is a great regional event and is consciously planned by the organisers to ensure a quality experience.
“For example, they deliberately cap the amount of tickets they sell to stop over-crowding, and have introduced best practice safety management,” adds O’Brien. “We are excited about the prospect of anti-scalping laws in Victoria… Scalpers are bottom-feeders. They infuriate decent gig-going folk.”
Organisers reduced the number of tickets by 500 to this year’s event, running from Friday 13th to Sunday 15th December at the picturesque Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre, and after two rounds of its annual subscriber ballot were completed, tickets to Meredith 2013 took just 4 minutes to sell out after going on sale in August.
“Unfortunately as Meredith Music Festival regularly sells out, tickets then appear on Gumtree and eBay at inflated prices. This contravenes the event’s terms and conditions which outline that tickets cannot be sold or attempted to be sold at higher than face value,” adds the Member for Western Victoria.
This year the event launched the ‘Aunty’s Waitlist’ program (named after the festival’s benevolent matriarch) to help refund tickets – which are valued at $319 – to people who can no longer attend and put spare tickets safely into the hands of willing patrons. With the waitlist now closed, a notice from Aunty Meredith warns: “Ticket-seekers BEWARE: scammers and thieves are robbing people every week on ebay and gumtree – don’t be fooled!”
Examples of online sellers broaching Meredith’s ‘No D!ckhe@ds policy’ include two eBay listings that are auctioning tickets to Meredith 23 for approximately $350, while this Gumtree user is flaunting a “neogtiable” price of $500, nearly $200 above the recommended retail.
“We are excited about the prospect of anti-scalping laws in Victoria,” a telegram from Aunty Meredith tells Tone Deaf. “It is outrageous that people can simply buy something, with no intention of using it, then withhold it from its intended market and only offer it an exorbitant prices, without adding any value to the process. Scalpers are bottom-feeders. They infuriate decent gig-going folk.”
“New South Wales have proposed laws to combat music event scalping and I would like to see these examined in Victoria,” said Mr O’Brien, who requested in Parliament that the Minister for Consumer Affairs examine possible safeguards against Meredith scalping. Under current legislation, it is only sporting events such as the AFL Grand Final that are classified as protected events.
The NSW anti-scalping measures, first proposed in February, look to change laws that will empower concert promoters with rights to refuse entry to those found in breach of their terms and conditions in an effort to prevent opportunistic scalpers from profiteering off of inflated prices.
But the anti-scalping changes were slammed by a number of ticketing companies, including re-seller platform viagogo and Ticketmaster, on the basis that government intervention can encroach on the rights of third-party sellers while further pushing unscrupulous scalpers into uncontrollable realms away from the monitor-able likes of online auction sites.
Research commissioned by viagogo alleges that 500,000 Australians were the victim of ticket scams and fraud in the last year, while the issue became a hot topic after backlash from fans who missed out on tickets to Bruce Springsteen’s Australian Tour 2014 saw Frontier Touring Boss Michael Gudinski damning “unscrupulous scalpers” and warning fans over being “duped” by online scammers.
Some are taking the matter into their own hands, with Ticketmaster and Melbourne’s Palais Theatre introducing their own online re-sale platforms, while music festivals Stereosonic and Splendour In The Grass have also warned against ticket touts while introducing their own anti-scalping measures.
The news of Meredith’s scalper crackdown arrives shortly after the event issued a stern warning to those looking to ‘jump the fence’ and sneak in for free, with the festival enforcing its ‘Zero Tolerance’ policy on trespassers as 18 people face jail and fines.
So bless your lucky stars if you’ve managed to obtain a ticket to Meredith 2013 (or even its already sold out sister event, Golden Plains)
