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Just spent this morning (and Wednesday morning in the 02 presale) trying to get Fleetwood Mac tickets for next September in Dublin. Tickets sold out more rapidly than any concert I've tried for before and no joy. Which is fair enough... or is it?
I then decided to take a look at these so called "Platinum" tickets. And it seems not all the tickets are sold out. Ticketmaster (in conjunction with the artists) hold these seats for the "most passionate" fans who are willing to pay the "market price". They claim these tickets are sold similar to how airlines and hotels sell their products.
A couple of things come to mind - 1/ there's a slight difference between an airline selling a flight which probably departs a couple of times a day most days of the week and this rare chance to see a band that it's fans adore. 2/ "Passionate fans" in this case will also mean the most wealthy fans (which is fine if that's important to Fleetwood Mac - they've as good as said it is by supporting this).
I would suggest that this is no more than ticket touting (despite Ticketmaster being at pains to tell us the tickets are not being resold on their website - http://platinum.ticketmaster.ie/about).
I sincerely hope Leonard never supports this (can't imagine he ever would).

Sounds like another typical Ticketmaster scam to me! I guess they've found a "semi-legitimate" way to tout their own tickets, considering they've already provided a facility for others to do it with "Get Me In". If enough people boycott these things, theyll have to have a re-think (and so will the artists when they see empty rows at the front).

John Etherington wrote: If enough people boycott these things, theyll have to have a re-think (and so will the artists when they see empty rows at the front).

I'm just off the phone from Ticketmaster's "platinum partners" website to ask if "market prices" would mean that if the tickets were not sold by next September (obviously extremely unlikely), then would the ticket prices be less than website price? Of course the ticket agent cannot help me with that. Despite my complete revulsion with this whole process, I could at least half buy into it if that were the case. But I doubt it is. I'm sure if those seats were not soid by then, they will just be released at normal price. It's sickening!

You're right John. I'd rather spend the money on a trip away to see someone special. Last year we went to London to see Suzanne Vega at the Barbican (tickets £50). Accomodation, flights and tickets for the cost of some of these tickets on Ticketmaster today. And a really amazing show it was too.

Ticketmaster works like that...
Also, on the pre-sales they don't give the best tickets.
Also, they keep the best ticket for all the Clubs they have (as in Dublin, the Audi club etc...etc...)...
And with this "partener_site" they also sell the best tickets with strange package...

Someone recently said to me, blame illegal downloading. The artists are losing out and therefore live touring is their main income. Hardly the case with Fleetwood Mac who've long since made their money. This is exploitation and total disrespect of their fans imo.