More Radiohead tickets to come after the Australian sell-out

Chugg Entertainment, the promoter of Radiohead's Australian and New Zealand tour, said on its Facebook page on Tuesday that tickets from cancelled orders and refunds will not go back on sale yet, but will be released closer to the November dates.

All six shows sold out last Thursday, 1 March, the morning tickets went on general sale at 9am local time. The two Sydney nights and the two in Melbourne were gone in just under half an hour. Brisbane, whose sale opened later, went the same way, and by the end of the morning Auckland was sold out too. Ticketmaster's and Ticketek's websites locked up under the demand, and some buyers had more luck on the agencies' mobile sites. The announcement had ruled out extra dates for the band's first Australian visit since April 2004 and their first New Zealand show since January 1998.

Touts put tickets on eBay at once, and The Brag reports asking prices of up to $400 each. In a statement on the day of the sale, Chugg said its conditions of sale were meant to stop resale but were hard for promoters, agencies and venues to enforce, and that it would not risk cancelling genuine fans' tickets. We will not cancel a ticket unless we can determine with absolute certainty which exact seats or general admission tickets breach the conditions of sale¹, it said. Professional touts list vague seat details for exactly that reason, so the promoter asked fans to send it any listing that gave exact seat or ticket numbers, and said it would keep scanning until the tour.

In the past week Michael Chugg has called on the federal government to legislate against scalping, and urged fans to keep complaining until federal and state governments bring in laws that can be enforced across Australia. The response to these Radiohead shows is a perfect example of the ongoing issues with ticket scalping⁵, he said.

Sold out, 1 March 2012