Dubai: Several fans were left devastated after the tickets they purchased for the Sir Elton John concert in Dubai last Friday turned out to be invalid.
For UAE-based Mohammad Ourzik, it was a birthday treat gone awry. The Frenchman said he purchased two Silver tickets for £523 from what he believed was a “valid and reputed” website last year when the concert was initially scheduled for December 15, 2016.
“I wanted it to be a treat for my wife who celebrates her birthday on December 10. I believed I got the tickets from an official source. I don’t know what happened but am now forced to return home. We have also lost our money,” he said as he left the concert venue with his wife.
Dubai-based Indian housewife Mamta and her husband Soumitro Bhattacharyya also received a rude shock when the tickets they bought from the same website could not gain them entry.
Mamta said she too purchased the tickets last year as a gift ahead of her husband’s birthday on December 17. “We took the Platinum tickets for €467. We thought we had the best seats and parking, but when we turned up at the concert, we were stumped. We were told the website we had bought the tickets from was not a concert partner and were given some instructions for a recourse.”
She said she had the option of buying VIP tickets at the counter but did not exercise it as she had already spent a lot of money.
Ourzik said he met another Indian-British couple who had a similar experience.
To an XPRESS query, the website in question said its customer service wing would get in touch with the customers.
Meanwhile, organisers of the concert cautioned the public against buying tickets from unauthorised sources. Thomas Ovesen, chief executive officer, 117 live, said the website from which the couples had bought the tickets was not an authorised agent to sell the Elton John concert tickets.
He said, “It is an outfit that runs what we call a secondary ticketing business. Typically, they purchase tickets from authorised agents of the concert and sell them across the market at inflated rates. What people don’t know is that tickets bought from such websites are illegal and invalid.”
He said the website was in the spotlight with governments in the United Kingdom, Australia and France initiating legal action.
“People should do their due diligence before purchasing tickets from such sites. When someone buys a ticket from an unauthorised source, they are in breach of UAE’s laws. In the case of the Elton John concert, our authorised agents to sell tickets were Platinumlist, Virgin Megastore, 800TICKETS.com, besides direct sales from our website – www.117live.com.”
Ovesen also cautioned people against buying tickets and selling them for a mark-up on other websites. “This is illegal. When we spot such activities, we request these websites to remove the posts.”
“Artistes are fighting the secondary ticketing business because it is ripping off fans,” he added.
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