Iron Maiden have gone to great lengths to protect their fans from the excesses of the ticketing market for their first major UK arena tour in six years.
The band have been working with Live Nation and Ticketmaster to operate a Paperless ticketing system, in full or in part, at all the UK venues on the tour. They are also instigating a number of additional measures to help fans access tickets in the fairest, safest way, including making tickets unavailable for resale, putting purchaser names on tickets and invalidating tickets that appear on any secondary ticketing sites.
“We do not want our fans being ripped off either by counterfeit tickets or through costly mark-ups on so called secondary ticketing websites,” said Maiden manager Rod Smallwood, an outspoken critic of ticket abuse. “These problems now affect the UK more than any other country outside of the USA. 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.”
Ticketmaster UK MD Andrew Parsons said: “We’re proud to be working with Iron Maiden on their 2017 tour. Paperless ticketing is a proven way of getting tickets directly into the hands of genuine fans whilst ensuring they pay the price intended by the artist.”
Iron Maiden has long been active in combatting the abuse of secondary ticketing websites and is a supporter of The Fanfair Alliance, which aims to unite music businesses, artists and fans against ticket touting and profiteering in the online secondary market.
The chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Music, Nigel Adams MP, who recently called for reform of the secondary ticketing market, added: "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."
