Iron Maiden Winning War Against Scalpers

Iron Maiden are claiming victory in their effort against ticket resellers and counterfeiters ahead of the launch of the UK leg of their The Book Of Souls tour in May.

The band had previously announced a paper-less ticket policy to combat "touting" and it appears to have been a major success with the group revealing that "the number of tickets available at inflated prices on the secondary platforms plummeted by over 95% compared with the band's last UK arena tour in 2011."

Manager Rod Smallwood had this to say, "We are delighted that the paperless ticketing system and other measures we instigated here in the UK have proved a massive deterrent to touts and counterfeiters. We want to thank our fans for their enduring support and patience. We appreciate that our stringent policy has meant fans having to jump over one more hurdle in the ticket-buying process but the results speak for themselves and I think everyone can agree this was well worth it.

"On the first day of public sale, we sold over 100,000 tickets nationwide direct to genuine fans through the proper legitimate channels. This is an incredible achievement and victory for concert-goers, not least as this is a full 12 date UK tour we're undertaking, not just a couple of dates in the bigger cities.

"We've calculated that around one million pounds worth of mark-up on tickets, is not sitting in the hands of touts, but instead the tickets are sitting in the hands of the fans at the correct price and we think that is a great result and makes all our efforts worthwhile.

"Secondary ticketing sites operate a billion pound profiteering industry offering little to the consumer in return for their hugely inflated prices. There have been many instances highlighted in the UK media recently about the reselling of tickets for corporate or personal gain so we very much welcome the excellent work of the FanFair Alliance and the fact that the Culture, Media & Sports Committee recently re-opened the debate in the House Of Commons on this ongoing problem and trust that common sense and good judgement will prevail."

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