Among all the deserved applause for the rather splendid Manchester International Festival, there are a few carping voices. Sold out shows, it appears, have featured some empty seats. There’s an implication that we are being told one thing, when it’s not quite true.
So among all the mwah-mwah-ing, there is a background bitching. I am glad to be on hand, however, to lend some clarity in the fog.
Your answer, dear mutterer, is in the free market business of ticket touting.
As a proud owner of tickets for both the Kraftwerk launch show and the remarkable Halle/Elbow event, I was tickled to hear the perennial back-of-the-throat croak of ‘anyone need tickets?’ Ah, the unmistakable cry of that hardy creature, the omni-confident Manc ticket tout.
It was a sure sign that the popular side of the festival content was making itself known among those gentlemen (never seen a female tout yet) who surf the uncertain tides of supply and demand around the concert-going public.
But, as in all trading, it’s a risky business - made even more so by the fact that all reputable venues regard the touts as a plague and these days release a number of tickets on the day of the show to screw up plans to profit from desperate fans.
It’s true that at Kraftwerk there were a some empty seats.
But anyone who had a good look at the fistfuls of tickets being brandished by touts outside the Velodrome - how fun it was to see the South Manchester art set lying on the grass in the Beswick sunshine - can see how the touts, like an over-exuberant share trader - piled in too high and got stuck with stock they just couldn’t shift.
It’s almost exactly 30 years ago since a cold September night, my very first in Manchester, when I got off the train, dumped my bags, and made my way to the Apollo, where I bought a ticket for the Boomtown Rats from a tout hanging out of a car window.
You see the very same faces outside every gig; true existentialists, living off their their trading spirit and their confidence in their own ability to gauge the demand of any show.
I know there will be those morally outraged by the fact I feel sorry for them when they are stuck with a pile of paper for seats no one wants. But remember, what they do is not illegal. And many of us will have bought their goods and have been happy to pay their asking price.
Looking at their disappointed faces outside Kraftwerk, I wondered how many of them have heard of, or are using Twitter - what a fantastic tool, I reckon, for using social networks to shift tickets on the day of a gig. Like e-bay - but without the cumbersome bureaucracy and the commission.
So come on, you touts, get Tweeting - social media is the way forward for entrepreneurial micro-businesses like yours. It’s your bridgehead into the world of Culture, geezer.
I can hear the croak now outside the Art Gallery… “Tickets for the Alina Ibragimova solo violin playing JS Bach at the Zaha Hadid gig, anyone?”
Tags: digital media, Kraftwerk, Manchester International, social media
