Frank Carter: Real fans getting tickets is everything

Frank Carter says musicians are put in "difficult" and "frustrating" positions by secondary ticketing sites.

The former Gallows and Pure Love frontman is determined to ensure "real fans" get into gigs.

"Whenever we a sell out a show we feel incredibly lucky," he tells Newsbeat. "The question is: who's buying your tickets?

"Without fans at my gigs, all I've got is an expensive band practice and I don't need any more of them."

Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes recently announced a UK tour which he says they had "a lot of control" over.

"I routed the whole tour. I decided where we wanted to go and the venues that I wanted to play.

"We listen to our fans 100%. Being in touch with the fans is everything.

"It's about trying not to leave anybody behind."

"What you get is this problem where people buy tickets to sell at a higher value and everybody loses out.

"The band loses out, the label lose out and most importantly the fan loses out because people that really want to be there they can't move as quickly as a computer that's buying all the tickets."

Once the venues are booked, the next concern is how much a ticket should cost and who should sell them.

"As far as ticket prices go it's important to not get so far ahead of ourselves that we are pricing ourselves out of everybody's reach.

"Everything is going up but our last tickets cost £14, which I think that gives you change to have a couple of drinks as well.

"With [ticket] allocation it's difficult because the promoters want to cast their nets wide.

"I don't know how much I can say without upsetting a bunch of people but I'm just going to say it because, to be honest, I've had the same conversation with them and they're not listening so it annoys me.

"I think you should be able to buy a ticket from one place. I think it should have the entire allocation.

"For me I think it can be streamlined into one place."

You Me At Six singer Josh Franceschi gave evidence at a recent hearing on secondary ticket sites

Frank's comments follow a Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee hearing last month which criticised secondary ticketing websites.

During the discussion MPs were told the sites make it too easy for professional touts too operate.

Stubhub, which is owned by eBay, also gave evidence and insisted that it carried out "due diligence on all our sellers".

However, Paul Peake, head of the company's legal department, said it doesn't "police or monitor our site and we are not required to do so".

After the hearing the DCMS said it would commit to a "fuller investigation" on ticketing.

Analysis - Adam Tudhope, manager Mumford & Sons

Adam says "industry standard" is for bands to get 10-15% of the tickets to sell to fans but bigger acts can get up to 75% if shows regularly sell out

"One of the arguments from the secondary ticketing market in particular is that we're not pricing our tickets high enough and that's why there's demand.

"I don't think that's true.

"I feel like a hell of a lot of expertise, market knowledge, thought and real serious consideration of what we think the fan we want to be at the show can afford plus what we need to make the show work in terms of our costs.

"Artists, managers and promoters are very involved in setting the ticket prices.

"They can set them really at any level they think, whatever they think is right in terms of how much they need to spend putting on the show, how much they hope to make in profit and what they think their audience can bear to pay.

"But the most important thing is they need to be transparent about it.

"They need to say tickets for this show will be £1,000 each and that's just how it is.

"The problem for me with secondary is that it's not honest, it's not straight and the public doesn't know that they're being ripped off."

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