Scotland’s hottest pop star Lewis Capaldi has rooted out touts who nabbed tickets for his sell-out gigs.
After the Record highlighted how vultures had seized hundreds of tickets for the shows next year, Lewis’s management ordered that Ticketmaster scour records and cancel tickets bought in large batches.
The clampdown was welcomed by fans and the singer gamely engaged in the debate on Twitter about how best to tackle touts.
Lewis tweeted to one fan who had been upset at missing out on a ticket: “So, so, so buzzing! Have just cancelled 50 tickets to touts so worth trying your luck just in case!”
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He expressed frustrations over touts to another fan, saying: “I’ve not seen a really, really good way of stopping genuine people getting into the shows without any problems with any anti-tout measures.
“Last thing I want is people travelling across cities or even countries to not get in after being refused entry.”
The gold standard for deterring touts has been set by Ed Sheeran – but his strict ban on resale, backed by ID checks at gigs, is expensive to run and does result in some fans being told their tickets are not valid.
The Record believes that all artists should include terms and conditions that stipulate only consumers can buy from primary sales platforms and that resale for profit is not allowed.
That would mean that touts who sell on would be committing a criminal offence for traders to masquerade as fans when they buy tickets.
Lewis’s arena tour tickets sold out this week – with the Glasgow shows controversially bought up in pre-sales.
Hundreds of tickets still ended up on tout sites Viagogo and StubHub.
When the Record checked Viagogo there were still several batches of tickets being flogged by unscrupulous touts –including scalpers based in the USA.
