Alan Longmuir of Scottish rock band the Bay City Rollers has taken the issue of ticket touting into his own hands by confronting a serial reseller face to face.
Longmuir wrote a letter to tout Andrew Newman after he learned that tickets for the band’s upcoming tour were being redistributed at inflated prices on the secondary market.
The Rollers’ bassist handed the letter to Newman in Linlithgow, Scotland in the hope that a personal meeting would force him into rethinking his actions.
“I wanted to look him in the eye and tell him he is a parasite,” Longmuir told Scottish newspaper the Daily Record. “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.
“Andrew Newman produces nothing yet he is making millions off the music industry without ever playing a note as far as I’m aware. And it’s the fans who are the main ones to suffer, which is a disgrace.”
Inflated fees and commission prices mean that any fan wishing to purchase a Rollers ticket on the secondary market would have to pay at least 50-per-cent more than face value.
Longmuir added: “Every penny he takes out of the pockets of fans is damaging the industry. It’s making people lose faith in the business and lots of people think it’s the artists being greedy but we are being exploited too.”
Longmuir told the Record that Newman said he was not acting outside of the law. Longmuir dismissed the claim as “rubbish”.
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