Melbourne Theatre Launches Anti-Scalping Ticket Platform

Melbourne's Palais Theatre has today launched an online ticket re-selling platform for fans looking to offload tickets at sold out shows.

Ticket re-selling is usually associated with scalping, but is often a platform for punters to move on tickets they legitimately don't have a use for anymore. A number of re-selling websites have appeared in the last two years, but by keeping the service in-house the venue will be able to cap the prices to face value.

Palais Theatre Management CEO Neil Croker said, “Purchasing tickets form a legitimate seller the only real way to guarantee that you get what you're paying for. At a recent Palais Theatre event one pair of tickets was sold on Gumtree 17 times resulting in 32/34 people arriving at the theatre only to discover that they didn't have tickets to this sold out show.

“This situation is extremely stressful for the patrons and venue alike.”

He added, “We understand that at times people have spare tickets due to unforseen circumstances… we have set up a service that sees the Palais Theatre as the conduit through which people can exchange tickets at face value and totally risk free.”

He said there is already a strong waiting list for Passenger's upcoming shows, which is the only show supported on the re-sale platform at this stage. The St Kilda venue will host Cyndi Lauper, Salt N Pepa and Charlie Pride before the end of the year as well.

Ticket scalping has a subject of industry discussion again recently, with a chunk of Bruce Springsteen tickets appearing on auction websites before the general public tickets had gone on sale.