A warning has gone out to people not to purchase Reading or Leeds tickets from any unauthorised dealers. Last year a lot of people were left empty handed and down on their money after people bought their tickets from a fake website, I reported about this on here, as a result the people did get arrested and went to court (not because of my blog though), however this will not stop people from still selling tickets and as this years Reading and Leeds festivals run out of tickets the sharks will start circling. The BBC report there are approximately 70 fake websites pretending to sell tickets.  Don’t think you are too wise for this either, Spotting a dodgy website is a good step forward but what if the website is a trusted website?

eBay is a trusted website but dont think that all the sellers can be trusted, some people in this world are just bad and they will do anything to get your hard earned money.

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Fake Ticket Warnings

Crackhead (allegedly) Pete Doherty has revealed that the organisers of the Leeds and reading Festival have asked teh Libertines to headline the festival this year. The libertines with Pete Doherty split up a few years ago and the festival have now asked them to rejoin to headline the festival.

Pete has approached all the former band members but even though they have been offered up to two million pound for the lucrative slot, one of the former band members Barat has put a spanner in the works saying he isn’t happy with doing the reunion. Barat has revealed that he is not happy with the former front mans (Pete) energy and doesnt want him around. Pete has got to go to see some energy guru to make sure he is not surrounde3d with negative or bad energy that will get in the way of Barats positive energy!

Pete has said they should just do it for the money as they are all “skint”but Barat has said he doesnt want to do it just for the money. Personally i don’t doubt for a minute that they will do it as its an offer that cant be turned down. 2 million is a lot of money and if it is turned down because of negative energy and not wanting to be exposed to it then maybe Barat is the one that needs a little stint in Rehab!

Festival News From Music Festival News

Libertines to Headline?

Festival Republic the organisers behind the Leeds and Reading festivals have announced that there will be NO box office for the Reading festival this year. 

This means that there will be no tickets on sale on the day and you will not be able to pick any tickets up you have already bought. If you live in the UK then your ticket will be sent out to you. If you live overseas and you are going to the Reading festival then you will need to pick your tickets up from the Hexagon in Reading in advance.

They have said that anybody approaching the site without a ticket will be turned away. I presume all this is in an attempt to stop people without tickets going to the event and trying to gain entry. Its a good idea as it will streamline entry to the event and it makes it clear there will be no tickets on the day.

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No Reading Tickets On The Day

Ive spoken about fake tickets a few times on here but i feel that it is something people need to keep at thr front of their mind as the theifs who run hese operations will always be ready to scam you out of money.

Last year a few websites were found to be selling tickets they didnt have. People need to be really vigilant when buying tickets and remember not to buy tickets unless you really trust the website.

efestivals.co.uk is a festival website which is also giving out the word about fake tickets as well as the organisers of the Leeds and Reading Festivals. The promoters of the Leeds and Reading festivals have pointed out two websites that raise concern and should not be trusted at all. 

My full time job is in internet marketing and you can run a few checks on websites. The two websites pointed out the festival organisers were www.readingfestival2009.com and www.leedsfestival2009.com

Both these sites are selling 2009 tickets even though they have not been put on sale yet and they are not affiliated with the festival.

After running a few checks i can tell you this:

• Both websites are owned by the same person, this is no shock but i thought id throw it in!!
• The actual websites are hosted in Hungry. This initially raises concerns for me. In my experiance most uk companys have their websites hosted in the UK, Germany or the USA, this is because of the main hosting providers and were they have their computers. Hungry looks to me as though it has been chosen specifically.. WHY?
• The domain names are registered to a P.O box in Vancouver in the US. which indicates to me that the people who bought the domain name dont want to be found.
• The most alarming and give away pieces of information lies with the registration and renewal date of the domain name that you can see below

As you can see from above the creation date was 25 July 2008. This is when the domain name was purchased. The amarming date is the renewal date of 25 Jul 2009. This is only 12 months and the domain expires before the festival happens. My bet is that this site will dissapear on the 25th July 2009 (if not before) and nobody will see tickets or refunds so be aware!!

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Fake Ticket Warning

I have reported about dodgy websites selling tickets on here before and now there have been some arrests. 5 people from London have been arrested for serious online fraud. They sold tickets for the Leeds and Reading festival as well as passes for the Beijing Olympics.

The company selling the tickets were called Xclusive Tickets Limited and they sold 1000’s of tickets and left people out of pocket unable to go to the festivals they thought they had secured tickets for.

People should always be advised to be very cautious when purchasing tickets for anything on the Internet. These people took tens of thousands of pounds from people and they did it by offering the most sought after tickets. If an event is sold out then take it that it is sold out. If you then see a website offering tickets and its a site you have never seen or heard of then steer well clear. As long as the Internet exists there will always be people trying to con you out of money and this is an easy way to do it.

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Fake Ticket Arrest

Reading festival have suffered a blow as their application for the festival to be increased in size and be converted into a 3 day event with 20,000 campers has been thrown out by the local council. Many people opposed the plans saying the disruption would be too much with traffic people noise and flooding affecting the area in the past. The area Hop farm is located (were the festival is held) is generally an idyllic place and people don’t want this disrupting any more. The council said it was a lack of planning and a lack of information from the organisers that have led to the decline. The organisers argued more details would follow the application being accepted but this was not good enough. The locals wanted to see evacuation plans and routes amongst other things

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Reading 3 day Blow

I reported quite a while ago about a guy who got arrested at Reading festival trying to gain entry with a wristband he had bought from a guy who worked back stage at the event.

Well as part of a an update the guy has been through court and has been handed a 12 month conditional discharge and a fine!! UNREAL!

Now im not sure if we haven’t been told the entire story but it seems a bit harsh for a guy a just wanted to get in the festival. It’s not like he mugged anyone to get the wrist band because it was sold to him. I would expect that there would be many people willing to buy such a thing at the time. 

Also what happens to the guy who sold the wrist band? Is he up in court for ticket touting? did he get arrested for selling his wrist band? Not that i have read.

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Reading Festival Rouge

The shortlist has been revealed for the Music Festival Awards. Over 200,000 votes were cast in the first round of ballots so that a short list could be created in each of the categories. The categories range from best live acts to best dance festival, to an award for innovation which included stages powered by fuel cells and swipe cards and wristbands distributed two weeks before an event to speed up the entry process. The Awards have been conducted by the music news website Virtual Festivals. The original list of nominees was massive to say the least, You can almost already guess who the winners will be, I’m sure Glastonbury and Leeds and Reading will win something. Although the short list is bigger than two options the best dance festival can only be between Global Gathering and Creamfields other wise i shall call it a fix!!!

The group i found interesting was the Most Innovating festival, as i mentioned there are some good ideas flying round this year and i wouldn’t mind seeing some of these ideas such as ideas for speeding up entry to these events which can be a mission.

There are 6 days before the closing of the awards and im guessing the results will be announced shortly afterwards. Personally Creamfields was the Festival for me this year although Global fell on a very hot weekend and was also a brilliant weekend.

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Festival Awards

A man is to appear in court on the 10th of November this year infront of a Judge and Jury after being accused of Dishonistly acuireing a staff wristband for the reading festival this year. He was also accused of wilfully obstructing a police officer in his line of duty.

Now im not sure myself how you would “Dishonistly” by something but it just sounds rediculous that someone is going to go through court because a member off staff sold his wristband. All i have to go from is what i read but the story implied serious effects of something that seems trivial as buying a wristband, ok he shou;dnt have done it, naughty, naughty,  but does it need that much money spening on it to take it through a court with a Jury?

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Wristband Crime

Havoc was caused at the reading festival when 3000 people Gathered around the small BBC introducing stage believing the band performing at 5pm named “The FF’ers” were actually the Foo Fighters using a different name, when the Foo Fighters didn’t appear on stage angry fans threw mud and bottles at the band who had to abandon their set due to the chaos! The band who played after was subject to a bit more of the same until their set was stopped and a BBC spokes person had to come out and tell the crowd the Foo Fighters were not going to perform. At this point many of the crowd had gone but some were faith full to the new talent and stuck around without throwing things at them! 

Festival News From Music Festival News

Foo Fighters Caused Havoc