Mumford & Sons tickets gone after 1 minute
Brokers can buy up large blocks of tickets and sell them at higher prices
Music fans are frustrated after tickets for the Mumford & Sons concert in Calgary this May sold out Friday — roughly one minute after going on sale.
Service Alberta is looking at the problems created by brokers who buy up large blocks of tickets and resell them at higher prices.
However, spokesman Mike Berezowsky says that pre-sales to fan clubs and other organizations can also eat up a lot of tickets.
"What we're hearing and what is coming up is that through pre-sales, there are fewer and fewer tickets available for the general sales for the public when they do go out," he says, "so that is making it much harder to get tickets."
Saskatchewan has implemented a system that only allows internet sales to someone with an IP address from that province for the first hour that tickets are on sale.
"With the advent of the internet, I'm not sure how effective that it," says Berezwosky.
It is possible to block or disguise a computer's web address to get around efforts like this.
Service Alberta is reviewing the steps that other jurisdictions have taken and will submit a report to Minister Manmeet Bhullar later this year.