Radiohead and Eden Sessions Join The Ticket Trust Update | General

A band that needs no introduction – Radiohead – have decided that fan club tickets for their forthcoming UK tour will be fully exchangeabe by via the Ticket Trust ethical fan to fan ticket exchange.

Once the UK tour is announced and goes on sale, any tickets sold via Radiohead’s w.a.s.t.e. fanclub will be exchangeable for face value via the Ticket Trust if a fan can no longer go. The Ticket Trust service will be flagged up to fans in their confirmation email on purchase.

The move is a bid to enable more Radiohead fans to see the band via tickets bought at face value, rather than at inflated prices from the secondary ticket sites, whose inner workings were recently revealed on Channel 4’s Dispatches programme. It accompanies a tightening up of terms to reduce touting, with fans limited to purchasing two tickets via the fanclub, with names registered and photo ID required for entry.

Joining Radiohead are The Eden Sessions, the summer series of concerts at the Eden Project, Cornwall. The Eden Sessions have already listed their July Blink 182 show with the Ticket Trust, and further sessions will be listed with the Ticket Trust as they sell out, enabling fans to exchange tickets at face value. The Eden Sessions will promoting the Ticket Trust site via their web site, social media and local press.

Meanwhile Secret Garden Party has just listed with The Ticket Trust and Kendal Calling, Bestival and Camp Bestival are in the process of registering their 2012 events. In 2011, tickets were ethically exchanged for End of the Road, Bestival, Camp Bestival, Kendal Calling, Creamfields and Secret Garden Party.

Said Chris Hufford & Bryce Edge, Courtyard Management "Radiohead are fortunate enough to have a loyal and passionate fan base cultivated over many years. Their live shows are well anticipated and rightly create a tangible sense of excitement through innovative staging. In recent years however, the band's enjoyment of their own shows has been marred by the knowledge that a great many of their fans have been obliged to pay well over face value for their tickets.

“Secondary ticketing is wrong on so many levels and as management, with ultimate responsibility for the welfare of the band, we must ensure that their fans are treated fairly. This is why we are happy to work with The Ticket Trust"

Commented John Empson, The Eden Sessions “The Dispatches documentary on secondary ticketing further establishes the vital role of the Ticket Trust in establishing a fair market place for the public .

“The Eden Sessions fully supports the Ticket Trust and we will be encouraging our ticket holders to trade unwanted tickets there and not at sites that charge prohibitively high premiums. We respect our customers and giving them the chance to resell unwanted tickets at a fair price further endorses that.”

Ben Turner, AIF co-founder, stated: "The Ticket Trust was created by AIF with Sandbag, who work closely with Radiohead, and we're delighted to now confirm that the band will use our face-value ticket exchange on forthcoming tour dates. There can be no greater response to the recent media spotlight on the secondary ticketing market than this development. AIF welcomes other bands and managers to join the Ticket Trust as the music industry finally starts to look within to put its house in order."

Added Sofia Hagberg, Director, End of the Road Festival “Watching Dispatches about the secondary ticketing market raises important questions and it made me feel even more proud to know that we are one of the independent promoters that are doing what we can to combat this problem by making sure that any of our tickets that are being re-sold by our fans are only done so via Ticket Trust - the ethical ticket exchange site.”

Said Toki Allison, Festival Coordinator, Nozstock "It's always been a major concern of ours that there appeared to be such a compromise of fairness and value for money with secondary ticketing sites charging such high fees, and we were shocked to discover the amounts of money being swindled from fans across the country.

“It's something we're conscientious about here at Nozstock The Hidden Valley, selling the vast majority of our tickets directly from our own site with a minimal booking fee. We are fully in support of the AIF's new initiative the Ticket Trust and stand full square behind legitimate, morally ethical and genuine fan-based swap sites such as this."

About The Ticket Trust

The exchange, at www.thetickettrust.com, will enable festival and gig goers to safely, securely and ethically sell and purchase tickets to listed events at face value, without the fear of fraud.

Ticket holders who need to legitimately return unwanted tickets will register them onto the site, and then send the tickets to The Ticket Trust for verification before they are made available for sale by The Ticket Trust.

The tickets will be sold on at the normal ticket price, plus a handling fee, capped at a maximum of 10%, payable by the buyer. On purchase, the tickets will then be either dispatched securely or held at the event box office for the buyer, with the seller being credited the full ticket price to their bank account.

Only authentic tickets will be used by the service and counterfeit tickets will be intercepted and confiscated, helping to protect against fraud.

The Ticket Trust has been created by the Association of Independent Festivals in partnership with leading ethical merchandise and e-commerce specialists Sandbag Ltd

About AIF

The Association of Independent Festivals is a not for profit body set up in 2008 to represent independent music festivals in the UK and Ireland.

Conceived by Bestival promoter Rob da Bank and Graphite’s Ben Turner, the association’s founder members included Bestival, Cornbury Festival, Creamfields, Evolution Festival, Field Day/Underage, Secret Garden Party, Summer Sundae Weekender and WOMAD.

With 31 members ranging from Bromley’s Leefest to the 55,000 capacity Bestival in the Isle of Wight, AIF enables the promoters of some of the UK & Ireland’s most innovative and successful festivals to speak with one voice when addressing the wider music business and government.

AIF aims to establish best practice for festivals in a variety of areas such as security, the environment and beyond, providing a knowledge base for festival promoters, as well as creating collective purchasing and marketing opportunities for its members.

AIF operates as an autonomous division of the Association of Independent Music.