Like many residents of Prince George, I was excited and am still glad to know that Elton John has made us one of the exclusive sites for his tour. I appreciate the coverage The Citizen has given this. But there is another less happy story that I am sure many people here know about. It is that when the tickets went on sale, it was on a weekday morning which meant that most ordinary working folks could not be online and have a chance. Instead scalpers, some from far away places in the United States and abroad, were at the ready and scooped up a major proportion of the tickets. By the time I got home from work that afternoon, getting a seat was impossible. Then using free services like ebay, local weeklies and Kiiji, the scalpers have been gouging true Elton John fans mercilessly. The idea that these low-life sellers would be making more money off real fans than the CN Centre, the promoters and Elton John combined wouldn't even register on the scalpers' ethics scales (if they had any).
This doesn't have to be the way. In some places, scalping tickets is a legal infraction. In Britain and the Netherlands, for example, soccer tickets cannot be resold and there are stiff fines and even prison for doing so. Some municipalities also have bylaws against scalping.
As well, the above-mentioned mass selling outlets could simply refuse ads that ask more for an event ticket than the price printed on it.
It would also be a big help to limiting scalping, if the show's producers and official vendors would open the sale at a time when average people had at least a fighting chance of getting through.
So welcome Sir Elton but I hope that the next time we get an act of this importance here, there'll be ways of stopping greedy individuals who have no interest in the artist from ruining other folks chances to attend.
Sue Ellen Cassidy
Prince George
