Beware of expensive resold tickets, Adele fans warned
Greedy touts are offering tickets to Adele concerts next year at fifty times the face value - but those who buy them probably won't get in.
The singer's first tour in four years sold out within minutes, after more than half a million people registered for the 57,000 pre-sale tickets available.
Despite their original price being just £35 to £95, they are now appearing on ticket exchange websites for as much as £5,000 each.
However, any loyal fans that are prepared to pay these extortionate prices may be in for a shock, as both Ticketmaster and The Ticket Factory say they'll only admit the person who made the original purchase.
"Failure to bring photo ID matching the name will result in refusal of entry to the show. There will be no exception," says the Ticketmaster website.
Meanwhile, Stuart Cain, managing director of The Ticket Factory, says that the company can trace tickets through their serial number and will cancel and resell any that are found to have been sold on.
"We want to make sure that the tickets we sell fall into the hands of genuine fans and so if we are aware of any of our tickets making their way to a secondary site, we will take steps to cancel them," he says.
"I'm hoping that Adele fans all over the country will get their tickets through an accredited STAR retailer without paying over the odds via these other sites. The promoter has also requested that customers purchasing tickets show photo ID on the night, meaning unless you've bought them from the primary agent, you'll be refused entry to the venue."
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Adele has waged war on the touts for this tour, removing 18,000 from her pre-sale ticket release window. This means, says Media Insight Consulting, that 36,000 tickets were rescued for real fans.
"The resale of tickets has been a contentious topic in the live industry with professional touts making very large profits from an artist's biggest fans," says CEO Chris Carey.
"It's fantastic to see the live industry innovating to ensure that more fans have access to affordable tickets when they first go on sale."
Meanwhile, with ticket fraud having cost British music and sports fans more than £1.2 million in the last six months, Action Fraud is warning Adele fans to beware of fake tickets.
"Industry experts believe this will be the biggest and most heavily subscribed ticket sale of the year and we are reminding everyone to beware that this is likely to attract the UK's most proliferate ticket fraudsters," it says.
"Christmas is a favourite time of year for fraudsters and to make sure you don't get conned out of Christmas we are urging people to avoid buying fake tickets by only purchasing only from official sources, and never paying by direct transfer."
