Iron Maiden win their battle against ticket touts!

When the upcoming home leg of The Book of Souls World Tour was first announced last September, the heavy metal legends unveiled a series stringent anti-touting initiatives to stop tickets changing hands for “ludicrously inflated” prices.

Measures including issuing paperless tickets with the buyer having to present photo ID upon entry, limiting tickets to four per person and 'setting conditions of purchase' so that tickets are not for resale.

Now, it has emerged that the number of Iron Maiden tickets appearing on secondary ticket platforms has nosedived by 95% compared to the band’s last UK arena tour in 2011 – a feat even more impressive considering the increased prevalence of such sites nowadays.

In November 2010 when tickets for Maiden’s 10-date summer 2011 tour went on sale, a total of 6,294 tickets appeared overnight on the three largest secondary ticket sites Viagogo, Seatwave and Getmein.

Six years on, only 207 were listed for the 2017 tour – these were solely on Viagogo, with the other resale sites Getmein and Seatwave agreeing not to sell Iron Maiden tickets.

Of those 207 listed on Viagogo, the majority were found to be bogus and are now in the hands of the relevant authorities investigating criminal activity. The remaining genuine tickets on sale on Viagogo were made null and void in keeping with the conditions of ticket purchase.

Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood said in a statement:

“We are delighted that the paperless ticketing system and other measures we instigated here in the UK have proved a massive deterrent to touts and counterfeiters. We want to thank our fans for their enduring support and patience. We appreciate that our stringent policy has meant fans having to jump over one more hurdle in the ticket-buying process but the results speak for themselves and I think everyone can agree this was well worth it.

“On the first day of public sale, we sold over 100,000 tickets nationwide direct to genuine fans through the proper legitimate channels. This is an incredible achievement and victory for concert-goers, not least as this is a full 12 date UK tour we’re undertaking, not just a couple of dates in the bigger cities. We’ve calculated that around one million pounds worth of mark-up on tickets, is not sitting in the hands of touts, but instead the tickets are sitting in the hands of the fans at the correct price and we think that is a great result and makes all our efforts worthwhile.

“Secondary ticketing sites operate a billion pound profiteering industry offering little to the consumer in return for their hugely inflated prices. There have been many instances highlighted in the UK media recently about the reselling of tickets for corporate or personal gain so we very much welcome the excellent work of the FanFair Alliance and the fact that the Culture, Media & Sports Committee recently re-opened the debate in the House Of Commons on this ongoing problem and trust that common sense and good judgement will prevail.”

MP Nigel Adams, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group On Music, added:

"Iron Maiden and their management should be commended for their innovative approach to tackling touts. For too long, genuine fans have been fleeced by professional, well organised and greedy large scale touts who use secondary ticketing sites to profiteer. With both industry and government beginning to take action against the touts, I am hopeful we will see a fairer ticketing industry sooner rather than later."

As well as being good news for the fans, Iron Maiden’s promoter Live Nation have confirmed that overall sales are higher than the equivalent sales point in 2010/2011.

In fact, seven of the 12 UK shows are completely and utterly sold out with face value tickets available for Manchester, Aberdeen, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle.

You can get them from Planet Rock Tickets now. The tour calls in at the following dates:

MAY 2017
Nottingham Motorpoint Arena – Thu 4th - SOLD OUT
Manchester Arena – Mon 8th
Sheffield Arena – Wed 10th
Leeds First Direct Arena – Thu 11th
Newcastle Metro Radio Arena – Sun 14th
Glasgow SSE Hydro – Tue 16th - SOLD OUT
Aberdeen GE Arena – Wed 17th
Liverpool Echo Arena – Sat 20th - SOLD OUT
Birmingham Barclaycard Arena – Sun 21st - SOLD OUT
Cardiff Motorpoint Arena – Wed 24th - SOLD OUT
London O2 Arena – Sat 27th - SOLD OUT
London O2 Arena – Sun 28th - SOLD OUT