Mumford & Sons are fed up with the practice of secondary ticket selling, the practice of buying concert tickets in bulk only to re-sell them at a much higher price, and the band is taking their fight to the people.
As the Wilder Mind band writes in an open letter on its website, the members have been quietly fighting this battle from behind the scenes for a while now. They've tried personally selling the tickets through trusted sites, holding back tickets to sell at face value closer to the show, cancelling ticket orders from "dodgy" credit cards and even a lottery system for one of the band's U.S. tours. However, the touts (as the British band calls the scammers) always find a way around these measures.
"Many tickets on secondary sites are being sold by touts who are simply in the business of ripping off the fan by charging an extortionate amount for sold out shows," Mumford & Sons penned. "People may argue that those tickets have already been sold and we're getting the money anyway. But that's not how we see it. We want fans of the band to be able to get into our shows for the right price, to feel that they've got value for money. We want every seat in a sold out show to be filled with a fan. Why do we care so much? Because it's not right, it hurts our fans and it's a problem for all artists."
The letter, penned by Winston Marshall, Marcus Mumford, Ted Dwane, Ben Lovett and Adam Tudhope, the band's manager, stated that the members went so far as to petition the UK government regarding the affair.
They all met with Professor Waterson of the UK's Department of Culture, Music and Sport last Thursday (Dec. 10), and they are now calling on fans of all music to send in their stories of bad ticket-buying experiences. Waterson is conducting a review of the issue and complaints can be sent to this address, ticketing@culture.gov.uk. (An automatic message will appear that says the deadline has passed but the band says that is not true as they were able to extend it.)
