Iron Maiden to announce UK tour tomorrow & reveal measures to thwart touts
The Book of Souls World Tour is coming home!
Iron Maiden have introduced measures to battle ticket touting on the upcoming UK leg of the Book of Souls World Tour.
The fervently awaited 2017 tour will be announced tomorrow (Friday 23rd September) and the metal legends say they’re hoping to halt tickets changing hands for “ludicrously inflated” prices.
Fans who buy tickets to the shows won’t receive printed tickets; instead they’ll receive a paperless version and the ticket buyer will have to present photo ID and the credit/debit card they used when they arrive at the venue.
Tickets will also be limited to four per person per show and the band will be utilising a customer support team to deal with any issues from fans with legitimate problems.
Other measures include 'setting conditions of purchase' so that tickets are not for resale and ensuring to the best of their abilities that ‘secondary ticketing sites are prevented from listing our shows and to invalidate tickets should any appear on these secondary sites.’
Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood said: “We do not want our fans being ripped off either by counterfeit tickets or through costly mark-ups on so called secondary ticketing websites.
“These problems now affect the UK more than any other country outside of the U.S.A. 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.”
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Nigel Adams MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Music and Member of Parliament for Selby and Ainsty 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."
Kerrang! Radio Tickets will be selling tickets to the Iron Maiden tour when it goes on sale. We’ll bring you further details tomorrow.