So there we all were, expecting Festival Republic to break yet another one of their promises and deliver a line up announcement that would be too mainstream for V Festival. We tuned into Radio 1. We listened to the Zane Lowe bore us for a bit and then he started rambling on like a child on LSD about which bands were being announced and you know what, it wasn’t as bad as we all thought, or was it?

Once you have the full line-up in front of you on a screen, the announcement makes sense and looks reasonable. Certainly a better attempt than in previous years for sure. Let’s not fool ourselves though; Reading Festival is no longer a rock festival. Sure, having a stage showcasing the finest in punk is a nice touch and having a few bands here and there that don’t feature heavily on the BBC stations is a welcome break, especially if it is from Fearne Cotton drilling crap into your head.

Let’s not get carried away though eh?

Weezer, Queens of the Stone Age and Cypress Hill are the real gems. Dizzee, NOFX, Gogol Bordello, Pendulum, Biffy Clyro, We Are Scientists, Gaslight Anthem and Limp Bizkit would also be a good listen. Heck, I might even give Axl and Arcade Fire a chance. Look past the bands I mentioned and you’re in a sea of crap mundane predictability. Bands are not there because they deserve to be there but bands that will ensure a sell out to mindless knuckle dragging kids that rely on mummy and her rich hubby to get a MyHab or whatever the frick they are called!

Getting caught up in the hype will make you think I’m a bit of a tosser, which in fairness is a pretty accurate description. However anyone that tells me that the comedic duo of Paramore and Blink 182 are eligible to finish off what was once the greatest rock festival around deserves to be put into a MyHab before I set it alight. Libertines subbing? Was the decision made by a person who shadows Doherty’s every move with a £5 note? Klaxons headlining the NME/Radio 1 tent? I’m struggling to find a witty metaphor for this one (yeah yeah yeah, I struggle all the time). Suffice to say it’s what hell would feel like, on a bad day, with only Bovril to drink and Twiglets to eat. There are so many repeats, they might as well call the NME/Radio 1 Tent, “Dave”.

It’s not all doom and gloom though, it’s certainly a step in the right direction (which in fairness was pretty easy), but there are the Lock Up acts to be announced. The best feature of the festival for many (myself included). A stage that show bands with a thirst for playing, a passion for music and more lumberjack shirts than... er... a lumberjack would have (sorry). A stage that exhibits bands that have the same drive that the main stage acts of Reading Festival used to have.

Look who we got closing the festival: a trio of tits (as good a drummer as Travis is, he’s still a tit) talking about poop, sex with mothers and naughty words. If I wanted to listen to that, I’d have just watched “Total Recall” at my mate Oz’s house. People say Blink 182 would get the crowd going. A fart in a coconut husk could get the crowd going. Before GLC opened the main stage a few years back, a chap with gaffer tape got the crowd worked up more than most bands on stage that day by simply gaffer taping down several leads and wires.

It feels like Reading was so close to putting one firm step forward but those two weak acts closing the festival means it’s taken two large steps back. Yeah yeah, we all know it has sold out and that Blink 182 will undoubtedly make lots of prepubescent idiots jump up and down in unison (who all sport identical attire in the hope of being individual) but so what? I want bands with a passion for music, a desire to make good music, I want to know that a band will still play music even if they didn’t get multi-million dollar record deals. I don’t want bands like Paramore who gained fame for having a female front singer who looks like the sort of girl who’d sell her virginity on eBay to get onto a course at Uni.

With what we have seen so far, will Reading Festival 2010 be remembered for years to come as a great rock festival? No, no it won’t. There’s still time though to prove me wrong. Maybe a special guest slot? Maybe Refused and Bad Religion play Lock Up? Maybe Pete, Tom, Carl, Mark, Hayley and Travis all share a MyHab which mysteriously burns down with them in it? So looking at the line-up initially, you might have given it a ten out of ten, take a step back and look at the guff and you might have given it a five, but then you realise the quality of the good acts, and the possibility of a stellar lock up line up, and it gets easily push to a seven.

This article is dedicated to Kemmel, Anders and Pinkie_182 for liking the worst band to ever headline Reading Festival. Ever.

Janusz Jasinski
http://www.strictlyreading.co.uk
Comments (8) | Permalink

Stamped hands, cold evenings and the chance to do some bird, porridge and time. What exactly went on at the Reading Festival focus group?

Reading (excuse the pun) the focus group highlights may fill many of you with positive vibes. Less indie? Wicked! Possibility of a Glastonbury style ticketing system. Sweet! An ale tent? I’m sure my grandfather will be well chuffed!

However, you need to take a step back in these situations and see what the true outcome was. Now, don’t get me wrong, things do look good for Reading 2010 but let’s not start selling tickets on eBay to create enough profit to buy our own tickets just yet.

So the date tickets will go on sale will be decided by the end of this week. Good stuff. They’re cutting it fine but okay, some good news there. We hear they’ll try not to raise the ticket price this year. Whilst people will like this, they do state that they will just “try”. I can try to become Jessica Biel’s hump buddy but I can’t see it happening myself.

Apparently there have been talks with See Tickets about making the process easier, to prevent the website crashing. Now, if I am not mistaken, the current process is hardly comparable to an Oxbridge entrance exam is it? If I’m not mistaken it goes something like this:

1. Go to site
2. Search for ticket OR click on link that has the item you want
3. Narrow down exactly what you want and how many you want
4. Purchase

I’m unsure how this can be easier but if they do make it easier then there will be more the same amount of load, actually an increase in load (the site is increasing by 3,500 people this year) over fewer steps, thus making the situation worse. Tickets will also be sent out earlier this year. Good news for a minority.

Ah, the line up won’t be announced before tickets go on sale because “this way it is the fans of the festival itself that buy tickets first rather than the fans of certain bands” which is not only bizarre but… well, bizarre yet again. People should attend a festival based on what bands are playing therefore the fans of the bands make for a better festival. Look at last year, Jamie T had a packed out tent whereas Faith No More didn’t even half fill it. I’m a fan of Reading Festival because of the bands that play played, not because of the name. Is it me or can a blind man on a galloping horse see that the only reason that this is done is to create a panic/rush?

The RATM/Glastonbury scheme is a possibility for next year. A possibility? It’s a god damn necessity! Bitter tent as well as lager; hold the front page, this is massive industry news (sarcasm may have been lost here). It appears that the over 18 and over wristband will still be around but if you look under 18, you will still be asked for ID. Lockers moving closer to the arena is a good thing but how much closer and where? Get them to a decent distance and it’ll start causing bottlenecks. This needs to be thought out.

Capacity increasing by 3,500 people. Where they going to go? They going to building a floating campsite or are people going to be allowed to camp in the arena?

No campfires after 8pm on Sunday is a good thing, I just hope that they get the message out as much as possible.
No alcohol to be bought in after 5pm (which coincides with the closing time at Tesco). So they will stop people bringing in booze when shops close? This will just mean people will bring everything earlier on. Apparently there will be a limit on how much someone can bring in. One crate a day is being put forward. I drink more for breakfast, how they going to manage it?

Anyone leaving site after 6pm on Sunday will need hand stamped and to get back in, will need this and their wristband to get back in. This should be a success unless the stamp is easily forged.

Police will be more vigilant; surely that’s the core of their job anyway? I’m getting an awful sense of déjà vu about this point.

No separate entrance/exit for day ticket holders as it won’t be worth it? Rather than me come up with a witty retort, it’ll suffice to say that it would be worth it.

Reading Festival will never be a indie Festival and it will be going back to its old way. I think the term that applies here is “I’ll believe it when I see it”. The chat about a three day lock-up is exciting though but again, it’s only being considered.

Gas canister ban still in force, not that it did much good last year, especially with stores selling them. Let’s hope 2010 gets a better outcome.

More information tents, one in the arena in fact. LED screens placed around site to give information on bands. The tent is a good idea, but is it me or does the idea of LED screens in a campsite sound like a disaster waiting to happen? Will be interesting to see this one (excuse the pun).

Other things were increase in toilets, Radio 1 tent will remain in same position, queuing system for toilets will be better, HMV tickets will be discussed, wheelbarrows to help people move stuff, more early entry tickets will go on sale, ability to decant from glass bottles into plastic ones and a change back to the old style comedy tent.

Lastly, the hot topic that caused the most chat was the forum loyalty scheme. As with most of the above though, it’s just a suggestion and nothing specific was talked about.

Which brings me back to my first point. As good as it seems on the outside, stepping into it makes you realise there are a lot of ifs, buts and maybes. I’m left with more questions than before and as for the stuff that could happen, if it does, then the festival will surely be heading to what I once remembered it used to be. However if it doesn’t then the festival will probably be taking quite a step backwards considering the leaps Download and Sonisphere have made.
Reading Festival 2010 is arguably the most important year for us and Festival Republic. My brain says not to expect much but my heart, for whatever reason, knows it will deliver.

Next article should be released when all the above stuff will no longer matter. We’ll know the line up, prices and more importantly, whether I’ll be sporting a moustache or beard for this year’s event.

Janusz Jasinski
http://www.strictlyreading.co.uk
Comments (1) | Permalink

Right, let’s be very clear from the outset. It’s nothing like being on the frontline in Afghanistan or going on a night out in Cardiff but the trouble at Reading and Leeds causes lots of problems for festival-goers and nearby residents alike.

This is the usual cycle of events:
1. Festival occurs
2. Trouble occurs
3. Lots of people get angry about it
4. The media pick up on it and write about it
5. Festival Republic say there is no problem but will try harder next year anyway
6. Go back to step one

This is what it feels like. The trouble never gets sorted. They are fire fighting constantly (please excuse the pun), people are not looking at the core issues. They aren’t resolving the problem whatsoever.

I won’t go into all the issues that Reading and Leeds face purely because I am too lazy but also because there is a thing called Google that will help you. However what Google won’t show is what should be done.

So what’s the difference/problem?

Right, let’s start off by looking at some of the other festivals in the UK. Download, Sonisphere, Glastonbury, V Festival, T in the Park. Granted, some may have had issues but not every year and definitely not to the scale that Reading and Leeds have become accustomed to.

I genuinely think the music has the largest part to play. Sure, we can get excited over Rage Against The Machine, Queens Of The Stone Age, Faith No More, Metallica but a few drops of genius in an ocean of talentless fashion-led posers isn’t enough to deter fashion victims that believe NME is their bible. People don’t go to Reading Festival for the music anymore, they go to keep up appearances. I stood amongst a lot of people when Them Crooked Vultures played and to hear so many ask “Who’s the old bloke playing bass” or “Who’s that ginger dude on guitar” sickened me to the core, and I don’t even get sick watching Dancing on Ice. If people don’t go for the music and establish legends of rock music then how can they appreciate the festival? People who go to Download or Sonisphere know the bands, know the music and are more tolerant.

Anyone going to the festival for a few years now can only see the ages getting younger and younger, even a blind man on a galloping horse could see that. Am I blaming youth? No, not entirely. A weekend away from the control of their parents to celebrate 347 A grades at GCSE and a  chance to show your mates you can drink a can of cider and not throw up, all add up eventually to a big mess. Add mass amounts of alcohol and God knows what else into the mix, does not make for a pleasant experience. Kids and alcohol don’t mix well and Reading/Leeds is a great example of that.

So kids are to blame right? Nope, although I strongly feel they are a factor. People in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s also screw around but back in the day, they didn’t (at least not to such a noticeable length). Why is this? Lord knows. Maybe Reading has now got a reputation that’s hard to shed so people feel it’s needed in some sort of demented reasoning that would even baffle Jeremy Kyle.

Income is more disposable nowadays, especially if mummy and daddy pay for your tent. So why should you bother bringing it back when it’s just going to be heavy? It’ll be easier to burn it right and look cool in front of your mates right? Do us a favour, when you burn the tent, stay in it, and as for this so called “Angry Mob”, don’t make me laugh. You’re hardly angry and nowhere near a mob. A more accurate tag would be “Several prepubescent  twats hoping their voice will break in time to get off with some lady by walking around trying to look mean” but I guess Facebook doesn’t allow such long group names nowadays.

Do you know how easy it is to enter Reading without producing a ticket or actually wanting to listen to music? Let me tell you, it’s insanely easy. Some people leaving on the Sunday sell their wristbands to the local scallywags for a five who in turn come to the festival and make profit within hours. Who’s to say these idiots don’t cause much of the trouble on Sunday?

So what to do?

Here’s an idea, how about enforcing some proper penalties? Guess what, this is there the Glastonbury-style ticketing system comes in. As each person is associated with their wristband, you simply get their wristband and ban them from any future events. Heck, ban everyone else that bought tickets with them. You’d be more likely to look after mates.

Be more strict on underage drinking. Listen, I’m no scrooge and whilst I will not suggest every child can drink alcohol at Reading, I sure as hell don’t want them out of their heads. If this means a zero tolerance on underage drinking then so be it. Reading Festival is not outside the law and never will be. Why even bother trying to tackle people smoking cannabis, what’s the worst they could do? Sleep? Steal some crisps? Sleep some more?

So what are you saying?

There’s no one problem to tackle at Reading and Leeds. Underage drinking, mediocre security, no real penalties, young demographic and awful shift in music are the main ones. These will not be sorted quickly.

So why not just implement a Glastonbury-style ticketing system and at least we can see the type of people being ejected so we can figure out what to do.


Janusz Jasinski
http://www.strictlyreading.co.uk

Comments (0) | Permalink

This blog takes a gracious sidestep from Reading Festival to look at a larger problem affecting me and you. No, not the worry that downloading mass amounts of “stuff” will get us thrown off the internet, but the plague that is touting.

Before I answer the question, let’s talk about live music. It’s safe to presume that there’s a good chance you’ve come across sex, drugs and touts if you have ever been to a gig or a festival unless you are a celibate straight edger who doesn’t use any of their 5 senses until they get inside a venue (let’s call this person Frank).

Sex And Drugs

Sure, it won’t be as blatant as some Rammstein video directed by Ron Jeremy starring Jenna Jameson but it’s happened. As enjoyable as it can be, the dangers that come with it can be insanely horrific. We still do it though.

A large percentage of people attending live music events have dabbled in some form of drug, be it alcohol or the devil’s lettuce (unless you’re Frank). Yes, legal drugs can be awe inspiringly amazing but then again they can lead to bad things. We still do it though.

Touts

Imagine if you’ve missed out on a ticket to a gig, and you buy a legit ticket from a tout for less than you would have paid going via official means. You should be well happy, until the point where you can’t get in because you’ve been screwed over with fake tickets.

Ok, let’s presume you made it in just fine. Is this going to work for every gig you go to? What if you do end up buying fake tickets one day? What about if there are fewer tickets available than you need for your group? What if tickets are actually going double for what they were originally? What if you accidentally bought tickets to the wrong gig? We still do it.

What’s going on?

There are many reasons why touts exist and these are pointed out in a government report on ticket touts (page 170). In addition, Trent Reznor wrote a good piece on the area of secondary ticket sellers which is worth a read. Essentially a tout is someone who buys tickets to an event in order to resell them at a profit.

Legally, they’re doing nothing wrong aren’t they? There is discussion going on with regards to whether the average street tout actually pays tax on their earnings. Failure to do so is illegal. Also, it is an offence to sell items on the street corner without a street trading license but cracking down on teenagers smoking weed is going to cure global terrorism, so that’s where the efforts of the police are put. Let’s face it, would you rather tackle a stoned teen or a steroid laden nutcase?

Under the terms and conditions printed on the back of a ticket, concert promoters could choose to bring a civil prosecution against anyone reselling a ticket, but that is unlikely to happen. Great stuff.

So what, it’s a free market, it’s no different from any other business. A business will pay tax remember and hopefully put the customer first. Can you see touts doing that? It wouldn’t be so bad if they offered nectar points on all purchases but they don’t even give a 30 day money back guarantee or a damn receipt so we can claim expenses.

It all comes down to a question of ethics and morality but even then, how are touts (even the ones that pay tax) any different from petrol stations over charging on fuel or holiday companies upping prices in peak season? How’s it different from clothing companies having a 2000% mark-up on clothes stitched together by child slave labour who don’t see the light of day for 6 days out the week?

A reason you’ll often hear is that “it’s not right” but then again, in the society we live in today, not many things are and we plod along slowly accepting it like a web developer can expect not to get laid. We’ve grown to accept things but why oh why is the issue of ticket touting still a hotly debated topic?

Cabbage and cider are nice. The supermarket is where I spend my cash each week to pay for such luxuries as cabbage and cider. I know it’s more expensive that supermarkets more local to me but I prefer spending that little bit extra for quality and for actually having onions in stock when I need to make goulash. I don’t mind paying where I think it’s warranted.

So they’re doing nothing wrong really are they? The trouble with touting is that any profit that touts make is not warranted. Naturally you may think it works on a “first come first served” basis but I guarantee if you ever need onions for a goulash, only to find that someone bought the store out of onions and is selling them at inflated prices, you will not be best pleased. Yeah, I can go to another store but their mate has done the same there. Naturally I don’t think footballers deserve £100k a week for running around, acting tough and kissing but that’s a discussion for another time and place.

So what’s the problem?

The real problem is that the record companies won't care about touts as long as they buy the tickets, which means the record companies and the artist can take their cut. If they took a hard line stance on touting as opposed to trying to stop piracy then maybe something productive could be done about it. It is just a question of ethics, throttling the supply of tickets in order to drive up demand is a standard business practice though, that's the shame of it all.

Football has done it, why can’t the music industry? This is where it gets interesting. Under anti-hooligan measures, it is illegal to sell tickets outside a football ground and a tout can be fined up to £5,000 if caught outside one. However clubs can choose to sell tickets in a secondary market via official partners. Clubs such as Chelsea and Man Utd are signed up to the deal, and let’s face it; they aren’t the most moral of football clubs. In simple terms, touts can sell tickets on official secondary ticket reseller sites. It still raises the question why the hell it’s been done for football and not the music industry.

Surely official resellers are better than street touts?

You want to buy a 50” LCD television. You’re on the way to the store (haven’t people heard of online shopping?) and know it’ll cost £750 but on the way you meet a stranger. He has the same television in the back of his motor for £500. Where do you go? Unless you have the IQ of a dead camel, you’ll pop along to the store. You will pay more for an item knowing it came from an official and trusted source. Touts know this as well. So rather than sell a ticket to you on the street, in the cold and rain for £50 profit, they’ll do in from the comfort of their caravan and make £100 profit instead.

Don’t official reseller sites at least guarantee tickets? There have been 101 horror stories about people buying from www.youwillnevergetyourticket.ru or buying off a seller named UBscammed666 on eBay so a guarantee does sound nice. The thing is, they will rarely 100% guarantee anything. How can they? They haven’t seen the ticket. After pursuing this point with many secondary ticket sellers, none were able to 100% guarantee that the person buying or selling the ticket would not lose out. Remember, if you buy from eBay with your credit card, you’re guaranteed a refund anyway if the transaction is fraudulent.

Sorry, you’ve bored me, what were you saying?

Music is a grass roots industry originally, the artists want FANS to attend their gigs, they don't want the tickets to go to touts who then rip off those fans. Think about it, would you, as an artist, prefer fans to spend money on you/themselves/beer rather than a tout? The industry could be seen in a libertarian view as a completely unnecessary middle man taking a cut which in essence it doesn't really deserve since all it does is distribute and advertise the tickets. The company should be paid for distributing and advertising tickets, but it shouldn't be able to drive up profit at the expense of fans because it's not doing anything extra for the fans or for the artists to justify it, it's just manipulating the market to exploit increase profit at the expense of genuine music fans, that's why it's a sore point among genuine music fans, we live under a socialist government yet we're screwed over by the free market and there's nothing we can do about it, we need to regulate it.

99% of the time they (hypothetically) sodomise consumers. They buy up loads of tickets and then sell them on at higher than the face value. Touts, by their nature seek to dry up the well to increase demand and therefore increase the value of the tickets they hold - lowering the value for money on a product. Touts decrease the availability of a product just to increase its value. There is no avoiding touts if you are looking to buy a ticket for an event that they have helped make unavailable. We are the ones being robbed of the chance to buy a product in the first place when certain companies buy up 300 tickets on a 1000 capacity gig. I think this is wrong and they claim to be person to person sales, but everyone knows that is poop. They do not contribute anything to the extra they put on to the price other than the right to go to a gig that they took away in the first place.

So what was the answer? Oh yeah. If you mess around with any of them, sooner or later, you’ll be fucked.

In the next article, I’ll be looking at what can be done get rid of all touts, official or not.

This blog is dedicated to Tom.

Janusz Jasinski
http://www.strictlyreading.co.uk

Comments (7) | Permalink

No, I don’t mean to cater for every musical style under the sun and embrace Kate Moss. I mean to set up a Glastonbury style ticketing system.

Well, before I start my blog properly, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Janusz Jasinski. Yeah, we’re not only taking your plumbing jobs, we’re also writing blogs. I run Reading Festival fan site Strictly Reading. I have been attending the festival since 1991 and I have been asked to blog Virtual Festivals to give fans more of a say within the industry and my series of contributed articles will be the voice and opinions of myself and the thousands of Reading-lovers talking about the festival on Strictly Reading at the moment.

For my first blog, I’ll attempt to tackle the issue of a something close to my heart: a Glastonbury ticketing style system for Reading and, I suppose at a push, for the northerners at Leeds.

So what’s this Glastonbury ticketing system?

Basically you register on a website to express interest for a ticket. At some point, if you’re lucky, you will be contacted with an option to purchase a ticket at full price or effectively reserve one with a deposit. The ticket will have your photo and details on meaning only you can use that ticket. I’m sure Google can help you if you want a more detailed brief. Reading Festival fans deserve this approach.

So why should Reading and Leeds have it?

Festival Republic knows Reading and Leeds will sell out each and every year. They could put me peeling an apple on all day and night and it will still sell out. Heck, they could just put an apple on the damn stage and people will flock to it like dole claimants to the Daily Mirror website.

From this popularity arises the problem me and you face at Reading and Leeds today, and that’s the one of ticket touts. They often charge in excess of £100 extra per ticket and make an absolute killing. Reading fans obviously believe this is getting beyond a joke. To get around this, we have been pushing for a Glastonbury style ticketing system with Festival Republic (FR). There are many plus points for such a system. Many, if not all, are explained below…

No touts - none of us believe they do any good unless used as target practice.

Easy to implement - FR do have a huge connection with Glastonbury so manipulation of the current system to include Reading, Leeds, Latitude and other FR events doesn’t extend into the realm of fairies and flying goats (can you tell I’ve had too much caffeine?).

Relatively cheap to implement - a standalone computer system should cost no more than £50,000 to produce. Split this cost over the several festivals FR is associated with and voila. Heck, I've designed and developed more complex systems with the cost not even going over £10k.

Franchise - the system, if done properly could be sold on and revenue gained from it.

Kerching - a deposit scheme a la Glastonbury (and Sonisphere), will help punters buy tickets easier. Failure to buy the tickets will not mean much of a loss to the punter but extra income to the promoter. Remember, Reading and Leeds always sell out so people will always buy returns.

Justice at last - genuine music fans like me and you will have a better chance of going rather than people going for fashion; you know who you are.

Insurance - you can pay insurance in case you do need to back out so don’t lose the deposit.

Kerching Kerching - the extra £100 or so people spent on getting tickets from ticket resellers aka touts, can now be spent at the festival or in the town of Reading. This would suit FR and the town of Reading down to the ground.

Security - no chance of punters selling tickets or wristbands to crooks outside who then come in to cause trouble.

Peace of mind – it’s easy to get a replacement ticket if it is lost. Let’s face it, you worry that you have lost your ticket even though you have it sewn to your forehead.

Banning – FR can actually ban people unlike the current system. Currently we can be banned but nothing stopping friends buying a ticket for us.

Promotion - as information is securely stored, it could be used for promotional events e.g. Slayer are touring, and if you went to RF, you could get a presale link.

You see there are pluses for both sides of the festival barrier. We believe that the most important factors are the fact you can now identify troublemakers and act upon it along with the possibility of more money being spent at the festival.

However it’s not all rosy. The only negative points as far as we can see:

Lose on deposit - if you do put a deposit down, there is a tiny chance you could lose it. It's a minor dent though and with insurance of a few pound, surely this isn’t too much to ask?

We pay for the system - if FR doesn’t absorb the cost (they should do so) then prices will go up again and it’s just getting too damn expensive.

Lose out on full amount - if you have the ticket, fully paid for, you will not be able to get a refund. Saying this, there should be a suitable cut off point.

I very much doubt it will be present for 2010 but it needs to be in place for 2011 onwards, but festival-goers need to stop being ripped off. The positives heavily outweigh the negatives. However with ticket sales for Reading/Leeds seemingly slowing down for 2010, will this be viable? With the proposed Live Nation (who largely own Festival Republic) and Ticketmaster partnership on the table, will this just produce a monopoly that will signal the start of the end? Lord knows. What we do know here and now is that Reading and Leeds need a Glastonbury style ticketing system, for me and for you.

In future blogs I hope to tackle the touting issues and asking is it actually any different from any other business and what things we can do to prevent it.

Cheers for wasting 5 minutes of your life. Keep on trucking!

Janusz Jasinski
http://www.strictlyreading.co.uk
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