Business News Live Business

Adele saved fans over £4 million by blocking touts

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 11 December 2015

Adele saved her fans £4.2 million thanks to her team’s previously reported efforts to keep tickets for her live shows off secondary ticketing sites. As a whole, not each. This according to research by Media Insight Consulting.

Working from the official line that 18,000 “presumed touts” were removed from those signed up for access to pre-sale Adele show tickets last month, MIC reckons that action stopped around 36,000 tickets from heading straight to the secondary market. Further research by the company found that the average price fans were willing to pay per touted ticket was £181. £181 minus the actual face value equals £116. 116 multiplied by 36,000 is 4.2 million.

MIC also reckons that around 50,000 people would have been willing to pay between £750 and £1000 for a ticket, which (taking a midpoint of £875.50) would mean the singer’s fanbase could have spent over £29 million extra on those 36,000 touted tickets. Which, if nothing else, shows that people are idiots and deserve everything they get. Let the secondary ticketing market run wild, I say.

Media Insight Consulting CEO Chris Carey said of the research: “Adele’s ’25’ has been smashing sales records and there has been incredible demand for her live shows. Her music has reached the masses and it’s great to see her taking steps to protect her fans. The resale of tickets has been a contentious topic in the live industry with professional touts making very large profits from an artist’s biggest fans. It’s fantastic to see the live industry innovating to ensure that more fans have access to affordable tickets when they first go on sale”.

Yeah, that too. But mainly the idiots thing.