IRON MAIDEN, whose first major UK arena tour for six years will be announced on Friday Sept 23, have gone to great lengths to ensure their fans are able to buy tickets at the intended price rather than at the ludicrously inflated prices prevalent on many secondary ticketing sites and also to protect them against counterfeit tickets.
Maiden manager Rod Smallwood explains,
“We do not want our fans being ripped off either by counterfeit tickets or through costly mark-ups on so called secondary ticketing websites. These problems now affect the UK more than any other country outside of the U.S.A. We believe the most successful way to prevent this is by implementing Paperless ticketing. This proved highly successful in reducing piracy at our previous London shows in 2013 and on our North American tours since 2010. This is a simple procedure and goes a long way to minimising the resale of tickets and reducing fraud by requiring the original cardholder purchaser to be present at entry.
We have been working with our UK promoter Live Nation and Ticketmaster to ensure that we can operate a Paperless ticketing system, in full or in part, at all the UK venues we’ll play in 2017. We are also instigating a number of additional measures which we believe will directly help our fans to access tickets in the fairest, safest way and at the intended price.”
The actions being put in place for 2017 are:
IRON MAIDEN has long been active in combatting the abuse of secondary ticketing websites; specifically the individuals and businesses who use digital platforms to immediately snap up and re-sell tickets at vastly inflated prices, denying the genuine fan a fair chance to purchase at face-value. The band supports The Fanfair Alliance which unites music businesses, artists and fans against ticket touting and profiteering in the online secondary market.
Nigel Adams MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Music and Member of Parliament for Selby and Ainsty adds,
"I'm pleased that Iron Maiden are taking a principled position and standing up for music fans. I'd like to think the whole industry can learn from this initiative and use technology to put a stop to the industrial level of touting that has been a blight on the live music industry for so long."
Click to read the FAQ which will hopefully go some way to answering any queries from our fans.