Ents to clamp down on ticket touts amidst unprecedented demand for Trinity ball tickets

As hundreds are posting to the event page to apply for a waiting list, Trinity Ents has issued a statement that touted tickets are to be reallocated. It is not clear, however, how this will be carried out.

Trinity Ball tickets sold out in a record-breaking time of 4 hours yesterday, in comparison to last year’s ticket sales period of two days. Almost immediately the announcement, tickets began to appear for resale on the Ball Facebook event page, although these were greatly outnumbered by requests to purchase them.

The tickets were priced above the purchase cost of €80, in some, but not all cases. In such cases the tickets ranged from €85 to €100 as advertised on the page, while asking prices private messages toted a price-tag as large as €150. These tickets had apparently been bought for the sole purpose of reselling them in most cases, as suggested by the time-frame in which the reselling began.

This open-trading of tickets is against the purchase agreement, and following from this, Trinity Ents released a statement on the Ball Facebook page advising sellers that their behaviour was in breach of the agreement: “Trinity Ball Tickets are sold to the College’s students and staff on the strict understanding that they are being purchased for the use of the purchasing individual and his/her guest. The Committee has noted the attempts to resell tickets posted on this page.”

The statement added that records are being kept on those attempting to make a profit from the reselling of the tickets: “Details of all the individuals attempting to resell tickets have been taken, and the fact that they are touting tickets has been noted. The individuals are in breach of the terms of sale, and will not be permitted to collect the ticket(s) on the day of the ball.”

Ball-goers who have breached this term of sale will be entitled to a refund of the price of their ticket, and the tickets will be reallocated to those who are included in a waiting list. However, it is not clear when this waiting list will be created, or how one can indicate whether or not they wish to be included on it.

Hundreds of people have already posted on the Facebook page asking to be included in the waiting list, despite silence from the Ents office about whether these names will be added, or if an alternative application procedure will be established to apply for the reallocated tickets.