See Tickets staff tickets.

[Huckleberry Fat]

Evening all, I've not been on here for some time but have a question I hope someone can help me with. 

My friend (no honestly, not me, really my friend) was playing a gig recently and got talking to a friend of a friend. The conversation got round to Glastonbury and the guy said he worked for See Tickets and he had four tickets for next year that he was allowed to sell,  he said they would require reg numbers but otherwise there was no problem selling them. He also offered a tee pee at face value! I smell a rat and I'd hate my mates to get scammed, not only for losing money but also not trying to buy legitimate tickets when they go on sale and therefore missing out on the festival, but they are shortly gonna part with money. There are so many questions here, am I being over suspicious or am I right to warn him off? Advise please!? 

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Sounds very dubious to me. Maybe they should ask him for his back office See Tickets phone number including his extension number so that they could at least ring him directly in the office to check that he is a bona fide employee.

It reminds me of a situation many years ago when my brother asked me if I wanted to go to an Oasis concert. Unfortunately I said yes ( they were crap, in my opinion) but asked him how on earth he was going to get tickets when they went on sale the next day and there was overwhelming demand for them. He indicated that one of his mates was working in the sales department of the ticket issuing office and that our tickets would be the first ones processed by his mate. This did indeed turn out to be the case. Makes you wonder how many peoples tickets he was processing before he turned to the general public and sorted theirs out.

[parsonjack]

For someone working in the tech dept at See (or with a mate who does) it would be no problem at all to access the booking system, most likely using a URL resolving to the private IP of the service to bypass public DNS, and book whatever they liked even outside the window of the sale (if controls to prevent this haven't been implemented).  It would also likely be no problem to buy up tickets, then sell them on and change the registration numbers against the tickets once someone has bought them.  Simple database record manipulation.  It's quite possible that agents on the sales desk may be able to do similar.

What is less likely is that this practice is above board.  I'd be very surprised if GFL allow See employees to help themselves to tickets, let alone sell them on.  GFL probably pay a lot to See to administer the tickets sales, and you can be sure there is nothing in the contract that allows this kind of benefit.  

If you can be sure that guy is actually offering what he suggests then it may be worth raising it as questionable practice with the GFL office themselves.

[Huckleberry Fat]

Thanks for that, it just seems a bit unlikely. How will they get the tickets? When would they get them?I'm sure they're not gonna pay out and then just keep their fingers crossed until delivery time in May/June.

[eFestivals]

On 25/08/2016 at 2:57 PM, Huckleberry Fat said:

Thanks for that, it just seems a bit unlikely. How will they get the tickets? When would they get them?I'm sure they're not gonna pay out and then just keep their fingers crossed until delivery time in May/June.

I could be wrong (I've heard it said, i don't know for sure it's true), but i believe that See staff (or perhaps just some of them) are given an 'allowance' (which might be 4, as you said) of Glasto tickets they're permitted to buy for themselves if they wish.

While that might seem unfair, there's lots of places within the music biz and attached businesses that have easier access to tickets than the punters do, and this would just make See another of them.

If that's true, it still doesn't necessarily mean this geezer you know of works for See or has access to tickets, so you should try verify that side of things if you can.

Edited August 26, 2016 by eFestivals

[zero000]

I've got a friend whose relative works for seetickets. They completely missed out on the initial sale this year, yet through their connection they were able to get two tickets, but no more than that, so there may be some truth in it. 

[eFestivals]

On 26/08/2016 at 6:42 PM, zero000 said:

I've got a friend whose relative works for seetickets. They completely missed out on the initial sale this year, yet through their connection they were able to get two tickets, but no more than that, so there may be some truth in it. 

I think it's likely that See staff would have a lower-number access to tickets in the resale than they might have in the initial sale - which might explain the only-2 for your mate.