Take one of the UK's biggest radio stations with the ability to attract the country's most popular music stars, find a field, set up three stages and host a music festival with a line-up to hold its own in the busy summer schedule. Then give away the tickets for free to those chosen at random from the thousands that have registered online, give away even more passes on said radio station, and all things are set for a great weekend...wait a minute. What if the inevitable happens and those who've managed to get tickets for this event, then decide to make some money out of it by flogging them on Ebay? That's right folks, it's our old friend the ticket tout issue, back and ready to piss even more people off!

Anyone with half a brain cell could see this one coming a mile off. When bands like Razorlight, Scissor Sisters, Kasabian, The View, Fratellis, Kaiser Chiefs, Stereophonics Maximo Park, Bloc Party, Klaxons and more gather for a free music event, the demand is nailed on to be huge. 500,000 people registered for the chance of getting one of the 35,000 tickets available. Now with no knowledge of the organizing process for the Radio 1 Big Weekend, it's impossible to directly comment on the ticketing process.

However it's reasonable to ask the question, why for an event of this magnitude was more not done to act as a greater deterrent to prevent people from buying online? Radio 1 have been putting the message out on air that tickets bought won't be accepted, but couldn't something similar to the Glastonbury style photo ID method not have been employed? Surely there's a cost effective way of making a ticket more personal. After all Radio 1, along with tons of others, were hammering home the message of what Michael Eavis and co were doing, and Radio 1 was half way there with the registration process for this event. To be fair in this case those planning on making a mint from this did have to wait for the email to drop into their inbox after a week long registration window like everyone else and in that sense there was still an equal chance of real fans getting tickets, you didn't need to be a super-swift online ticket buyer to beat the crush in this case, but that's no consolation for those still trying to win their way to Preston through on air competitions.

Although undeniably frustrating for those who tried to get to Preston this coming weekend, the wider issue here is, once again though, the legality of selling on tickets for vastly inflated prices via Ebay, whether they were originally free or otherwise.

We, along with many others,
reported over the weekendthat the government have waded in for their say on the matter, with Creative Industries Minister Shaun Woodward saying that profiting from the event was unacceptable. BBC News is reporting his comments: "This flies in the face of all the hard work that Radio One is putting in to stamping out touts at the Big Weekend. Ebay should stop selling the tickets, the artists are not making money from this free event, so why should the touts? Demand for this event is outstripping supply by more than ten to one, and the BBC has decided that people should get tickets on the basis of how lucky they are, not how much money they have."

At the time of writing Ebay have said they will continue to allow tickets to be sold on their site as it is not against the law, and they have a perfectly valid point.

Now it wouldn't be like a politician to go barking up the wrong tree would it, no surely not, but Mr. Woodward, and anyone else from the Government who chooses to join him in condemning this, are of course missing a very obvious fact. Although bloody annoying, people aren't actually breaking the law when they sell tickets on the net, and Ebay is merely providing a service for them to do so. If MPs really cared about this issue, maybe they could use one of their regular touting think tank sessions to pull their finger out of their backside and do something, like perhaps making it illegal.

As the Glastonbury registration window was opening in February, the Government and the live entertainment industry were proudly announcing a new series of measures to tackle touting. The plans, which were drawn up at a Tout Summit organized by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, were said at the time to be designed to "protect Consumers".

Those present, who included Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell plus representatives from event organisers, box offices and internet auction sites, hope to succeed in this by introducing the following measures. An official ticket exchange system allowing fans to swap tickets amongst themselves, auction sites displaying the face value of a ticket as well as details on seating if applicable and a phone line for members of the public to report unscrupulous ticket sellers. However the Government stopped short of legislating against touting citing a new European Law 'Unfair Commercial Practices Directive' which, it is claimed, should protect ticket buyers more when it comes into force later this year. They also quoted their own survey which suggested respondents do not want the practice outlawed so they can retain the ability to get rid of unwanted tickets.

Having only done a very brief and unscientific straw pole, I can't claim this statement to be a mass generalization of the opinion of the UK's music fans, however having been going to festivals for nearly a decade and watching the rise of the online ticket tout, logic would say that if there was a suitable place for unwanted tickets to be passed on at face value and face value only, the need for the honest music fan to go on Ebay to make back the money they spent wouldn't be there. This would mean that in my opinion, the majority of gig and festival goers wouldn't have a problem with ticket touting being made illegal.

Forming an impartial view on something when you've been directly inconvenienced by it can be difficult, however if you were to ask those who've missed out due to touts getting their hands on Radio 1 Big Weekend tickets, I'm sure they'd like to see selling tickets online for large amounts of money made illegal. Then if you ask those who were unable to get tickets for the Carling Weekend, T in the Park, V or the Isle of Wight this year, or maybe the same events in 2006, you might notice something of a running theme emerging.

Although for some the measures taken by Glastonbury may have seemed a bit extreme, if it means it becomes near on impossible for a tout to take advantage of a desperate festival hopeful, then any inconveniences are surely worth putting up with.

Granted festival organizers and ticket distributors could do more to make tickets harder to sell on, but so too could the government. Rather than some MP who most of us have never heard of getting their soundbite on a national radio station, saying how terrible this all is, maybe those with the ability to actually do something about it should look closer to home and try to bring about a change for those who are loosing out, rather than simply appearing to be our friend while the online ticket tout issue is again a major point of concern.