With tickets for the Reading Festival long since sold out, fans have been warned against buying briefs from unlicensed websites.
One of the most popular live music events in the UK, Reading festival has shaken off its roots as a hard rock and metal event to become one of the most eclectic weekends around. Together with a sister site in Leeds, the festival has earned a reputation as one of the nation’s premiere music events.
This year’s Reading festival boasts a stunning line up including Kings Of Leon, Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead. The Oxford giants rarely play live, with festival appearances being as rare as hen’s teeth. Their performance at Glastonbury in 1997 has gone down in the annals of that event as one of the site’s greatest ever sets.
Unsurprisingly, demand for tickets has been high and all 80,000 tickets sold out within hours. Now it seems that unscrupulous sellers have set up websites claiming to have passes left.
Reading councillor Paul Gittings told the BBC that those websites were exploiting “customer’s desperation” and warned fans against using them.
However some users are still attempting to buy tickets from these sites, and more keep springing up by the day. Trading Standards have identified more than 70 hoax websites, and are continuing to search for more.
“People should take care to only buy from the official website and beware fakes,” councillor Gittings said.
“The difficulty we have is that some of these websites are very impressive indeed and designed to entice and attract consumers into using them.”
“The whole appearance and layout of these sites makes them look official and genuine.”
“Many of these websites are simply online ticket touts, resellers of tickets, who are working on the customer’s desperation by promising tickets for a sold out event.”
Reading and Leeds are set to take place between August 28th – 30th.
