The Domestic Terrorist - Ebay Tout Scum Die!

GLASTONBURY : DIE TOUT SCUM, DIE!!!!!!!!

So Glastonbury’s sold out again.

So what?

It ain’t that great. Glastonbury is not the amazing mecca of festivals it is made out to be. Last time I was there - just before Vince Power got to sponsor it - it was just an enormous sprawling mess of fucked up hippies, weekend warriors, thieves breaking into tents, and overpriced crappy pasta. And I didn’t even get a sniff of pussy. And the odd band.

People seem to think that Glastonbury is the definitive, be-all and end-all of festivals. It’s not : its just bigger and wilder than the rest. I go to festivals every year, and it’s no better or worse than the rest of them. Worse in many respects :smellier, larger, with more, shitter bands and worse facilities.

At the heart of it all, every festival is just a fairly bland, homogenous collection of small-to-huge bands playing gigs in huge fields. And we, the faithful public, are expected to just drive hundreds of miles to go along to see bands that – by and large – aren’t as good as they used to be play old songs to forty thousand or a hundred thousand punters at a time.

There’s are only a handful of bands on you really want to see, there’s an enormous walk between stages, all the bands are on at the same time (and yet there’s also huge gaps where there are no bands on at all), there’s enormous queues for everything, beer costs £3 pounds for a warm paper cup of diluted shite, going to the toilet involves wading through a cesspool of stagnant bacteria, there’s always far too many drunk wankers who can’t take their beer, and – especially if you’re in Leeds – you don’t sleep as there’s people who are reminding you, Very Loudly, that Sleep Is For Losers and rioting is lots more fun. Lets have a bonfire and tip over toilets.

And yet every year Glastonbury sells out, often before a single band is announced. I don’t know why. It’s not a spiritual homecoming. It’s just an enormous amount of idiots in one place and time getting stoned or drunk watching bands.

SOME BANDS PLAY AT THEM, APPARENTLY

Oh yeah, there were some bands on I quite enjoyed. Most of them were all on at the same time. Maybe this is to prevent overcrowding. Maybe it’s to piss people off. Maybe its because they can’t work out that you put rubbish bands on in small tents at any old time - instead of on big stages in the morning.

For example : here’s the bands I haven’t seen thanks to overscheduling : Massive Attack, the Happy Mondays, Mogwai, Robert Plant, Pop Will Eat Itself, Counting Crows, The The, Bloodhound Gang, Ash, Evan Dando, Slipknot, The Pogues, Joe Strummer, Orbital, The Aphex Twin, and John Peel… To name a few.

So I can’t say I’m overjoyed about going to festivals.

EBAY HELL

Even if I wanted to go, it’s sold out already. And here’s where it gets messy. On this thing called the Internet, there’s a place called Ebay where you can auction anything.

There’s also this band called Radiohead. They’re quite popular. I think the last time they played Britain they played to 50,000 people. They’re touring soon, to audiences about 3% of that size a night.

Don’t ask me why. All I know is that for everyone who gets to see them there’s probably 35 people who don’t who’d quite like to go. I’m no mathematician, but that tells me the laws of supply and demand are broken. Something tells me that even at an extortionate £27.50 or £105 a ticket, the only profit that’s going to be is on the streets outside the gig.

And so… Ebay is awash with ticket touts auctioning tickets for Radiohead’s ‘club’ tour. Radiohead gig tickets went for £6,000 on Ebay. Isn’t capitalism wonderful?

And so, whilst fans of the band curse themselves for not being sat on the Internet at the precise moment they needed to be to order tickets with a dangerously maxed-out credit card, touts are rubbing their hands with glee. They’ll get the tickets, sell them for a dozen times their face value, and make £300 a ticket profit.

But this, all of this, ultimately is Radiohead’s decision. They made it happen by artificially creating an absurd sense of demand and an unrealistic, elitist restricted sense of supply.

THE SOLUTION?

By the simple answer is, any band that plays somewhere smaller that it is, and abuses its position in the marketplace, always seems to forget that the public don’t forget. I’m not going gaga over tickets. I’d quite like to see Radiohead sure, but I’m not going to lose my dignity by paying stupid tout prices or demeaning myself to jumping through hoops. If the band don’t want me to see them, maybe I don’t want to see them. Maybe the joke’ll be on them when they play the tinshed Wembley Arena and they have oodles of tickets left over. The joke works both ways : people who like the band won’t buy gig tickets.

And I’d feel a lot more inclined to see the band if I thought that the tickets were being sold to people who actually liked them instead of people who like selling the tickets for huge wodges of cash on Ebay. And, whilst Radiohead – and Glastonbury – have sensibly revoked some ticket sales to touts, that still goes nowhere near to wiping out the tout scum problem.

So, why not dispense with tickets completely? Why not limit sales to using your credit card as the ticket itself?

You can’t sell your credit card as a gig ticket on Ebay, and instead of issuing tickets, why not have it so the only way to enter is to submit your card into a machine and it lets you and a friend in? No tickets to be sold outside the gig by Johnny Bootleg Tout Bloke as there are no tickets. And therefore, no chance of someone paying hundreds of pounds to a Tout bloke to get in.

But no, that’s far too clever, far too effective. Instead, we still have paper tickets, we still touts, we still have the ruthless exploitation of the fans by multinational businesses, by tout scum, and by booking agencies all too willing to sell you all manner of Service charges.

THE ALTERNATIVE FESTIVAL

So, as you can gather, I’m not going to Radiohead or Glastonbury this year. But don’t worry – they’re overrated and certainly not worth either what the band or the touts think. This year I’m holding an alternative Glasto : and just as good as the real thing. And so can you.

All you need is to get a TV, stick it as far into the garden as your extension cable will allow, get warm beer, sell it to yourself at £3 a can, have thousands of people you don't know sleeping, fighting, and fucking all around you, (as well as a handful of professional thieves who slit open your house and empty the contents), stick on BBC3 or whatever, sit back and relax as you see Counting Crows for the 23rd time, a talentless rap act, a huge American stadium band, and Jools bloody Holland. On Sunday at 10.30 stick on a classical LP and pretend its the Glasto Town Choir, and then take 40 minutes to find somewhere in the kitchen where you can have a burger that consists of bread and offal. (No onions, no lettuce, no extras).

To finally get that authentic feel, stick your alcohol in the microwave for 30 minutes before opening. And then pour it into a paper cup with a corporate logo on. That’s my Glastonbury I’m holding this year in my garden. Just as good : no touts, no booking fees, no Ebay, no rip offs.

So here’s a message to bands, promoters and agencies everywhere. People who like the band don’t have to buy gig tickets : remember that. The rule applies to big bands in their big boots deliberately playing small venues so their precious Touts get some money. It also applies to big bands in their big boots playing big places where many fans haven’t turned up because they’re pissed off they didn’t get tickets last time. The rule might just apply to when you have thousands of tickets left over you can’t sell to anyone.

The blade cuts both ways. Deny your fans the chance to see you… and they might deny you when they get the chance. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

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