Britney Spears UK tour sparks discount ticket row

Discount tickets for Britney Spears' tour have become a talking point

Britney Spears' UK tour is dividing the music industry over whether promoters should use voucher websites to sell discounted tickets.

The US singer shifted more than 5,000 extra passes for her arena gigs after slashing ticket prices.

Festival Republic's Melvin Benn said the emerging trend "undoubtedly works" while another promoter called the strategy "incredibly damaging".

Spears' concert organisers Live Nation had "no comment".

Earlier this month deal websites such as Groupon and Travelzoo made tickets available for Spears' shows in Manchester, Birmingham and London for half the original price of £62.50.

Festivals

Rene Freling, general manager for local deals and entertainment at Travelzoo, said: "We are starting to see a few more pop events being promoted.

"Promoters are thinking, instead of shows being 90% sold out, they'd rather have it full and promote it to a wider audience."

Chase & Status's Will Kennard [Left] said it looks "desperate" from artists

Groupon, who have more than five million subscribers in the UK, told Newsbeat that this year they'd offered discount tickets to a number of events including shows from N-Dubz, Bon Jovi, Snoop Dogg, Westlife and JLS.

Melvin Benn, who organises festivals such as Latitude and Reading and Leeds, said fans should expect to see more of this tactic to sell tickets.

"It's been demonstrated to work and works particularly well for an awful lot of concerts," he said.

Explaining it was a hot topic in the music industry, he added that it was part of the industry's move towards "dynamic pricing".

"It's definitely emerging. In tough economic times people will look at varying ways of pricing their tickets."

Melvin Benn said he would not use the method for his own festivals.

"People would come to expect it year on year," he admitted. "It would damage the viability of the festival in the long-term."

'Damaging'

John Rostrum, an independent promoter from south Wales, said he had refused an approach from a deal website to sell discounted tickets for his festival SWN, held in Cardiff earlier this month.

"I would never use a discount site," he said.

"To start discounting for me would seem horribly wrong. It's very short-term.

"It's incredibly damaging for shows because in future when a show goes on sale people will sit back and go, 'I won't buy until the week before.'"

He said it sent out the wrong message about an act, adding it "could effectively kill other parts of their career".

Will Kennard from dubstep act Chase & Status, who've recently completed a sold-out UK tour, said: "It cheapens the way it looks and maybe looks a bit desperate.

"It'd maybe turn me off from going to a concert."

Last week primary ticket agent Ticketmaster launched their own website offering ticket deals for music, theatre and sports events.