Britney Spears UK tour sparks discount ticket row
Page last updated at 06:09 GMT, Monday, 31 October 2011
By Greg Cochrane
Newsbeat music reporter
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."
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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".
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