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Disregard shown for anti-tout controls

UNITED KINGDOM -
World News
November 2, 2017
Metallica-award---Use-pic-cap-in-summary

Thousands of fans were allowed to bypass strict restrictions for Metallica’s UK shows, despite the band’s efforts to prevent ticket touting.

Fans were told that only the original buyer with ID would be permitted entry, after the artiste, promoter Live Nation Entertainment (LNE) and venues including London’s The O2 (cap. 21,000), Manchester Arena (20,000) and Glasgow’s SSE Hydro (13,000) agreed to use personalised tickets.

The measure, designed to make any tickets bought on secondary sites invalid, was used at a Foo Fighters concert at The O2 recently and resulted in around 200 people who had bought touted tickets being turned away (see Audience issue 212).

However, this time people with resold tickets were waved through without ID checks.

“Live Nation issued instructions to ignore names on tickets and not to refuse anyone entry,” a source close to the shows tells Audience. “There were thousands of resold tickets allowed into one venue alone.”

Ticketmaster, which is owned by LNE, was the official primary seller for the shows and despite the restrictions, its secondary sites Get Me In! and Seatwave, along with eBay-owned Stubhub and Viagogo, listed tickets for resale.

LNE declined to comment when contacted by Audience, as did Metallica’s management Q Prime, international agent K2 Agency and the venues involved.

During one of their two-shows at The O2 Metallica broke the record attendance at the venue performing to 22,211 people, beating the previous record of 21,000 set by Muse last year.

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