'70s Pop Star Confronts Infamous Scalper 'Parasite' For Screwing Over Actual Fans

Veteran pop artist Alan Longmuir, of legendary Scottish outfit the Bay City Rollers, has taken a notorious ticket on-seller to task for sweeping up tickets for the band's impending Once In A Lifetime retrospective tour and hawking them off at marked-up prices.

As the Daily Record reports, Longmuir approached 25-year-old Andrew Newman outside the latter's Newman Foundation premises in Linlithgow to confront the scalper over his mass purchase of tickets for the band's upcoming tour, which had been selling for £40 (about $66.50) and Newman is alleged to have listed at "a premium" on several secondary ticketing market websites.

"I wanted to look him in the eye and tell him he is a parasite," Longmuir explained to the paper of his motivations in seeking out Newman, who is estimated to have built a personal fortune of more than £2 million through his on-selling endeavours and became the focus of UK media interest back in May, when the paper ran a profile piece labelling him as "Scotland's biggest ticket tout".

"We have been ripped off for our entire careers and we can’t even get a fair deal on a nostalgia tour, which we are all looking forward to."

During the confrontation, Longmuir — who will perform with guitarist Stuart 'Woody' Wood and Les McKeown on the impending tour — gave Newman a typed letter that criticised his practice of "making a fortune by selling tickets for gigs and putting on huge mark-ups".

"You may not bother to think about it but your actions mean that many working-class fans are being priced out of gigs," the letter read. "Our band, like many others, have been exploited and swindled by lawyers, record companies and managers for decades. And now it has come to our attention that you are taking almost 50 per cent extra from the face value of our tickets.

"On behalf of the band, I'd like to invite you to pack it in and to stop being a parasite. Your greed is wrecking the industry.

"Get a real job."

Marked-up ticket re-selling is a serious problem in the UK, where buyers are able to purchase passes and on-sell them at significantly higher prices using sanctioned resale facilities, within the scope of consumer law. Additional charges wrought through the use of such secondary platforms often see consumers stung for at least 50% extra than they would have otherwise paid at an official point of sale.

Legendary heavy metal outfit Iron Maiden joined the fight against the secondary ticketing market early last year, expressing support for the then-Consumer Rights Bill, now Consumer Rights Act, to provide better regulations alongside broader rights and avenues of recourse for customers.

After much debate, the Act ultimately passed Royal Assent in March last year — without protections as to limits on prices, making the argument that re-sellers are free to charge what they wish and, if a buyer is willing to pay that sum, that's economics, baby. However, individuals are also forbidden from making mass ticket-purchases with the express intent of on-selling at high prices, though policing this has proven difficult, as The Daily Record reports "few prosecutions have been brought" to date.

Longmuir's frustration at the murkiness of the situation is palpable, with the veteran musician telling the Daily Record that he said to Newman that "his business is basically an attack … on every artist", but that the re-seller "just nodded" while being addressed.

"I thought he was arrogant because he cut me off and said he was doing nothing outside of the law, but that's rubbish," Longmuir told the paper.

"He can't just go and hoover up tickets and make a killing without breaking the law."

The Bay City Rollers were one of Scotland's most successful pop exports of the late 20th century, hitting teen-idol status on the back of hits such as Bye, Bye, Baby, Give A Little Love, Shang-A-Lang and Money Honey, among others.

The band were primarily active from the mid-1960s through late 1980s, with a couple of prior reunion efforts occurring in 1990 and from 1998-2000 before Longmuir, Wood and McKeown reconvened late last year for the first show of what has become the Once In A Lifetime tour.