PERTHSHIRE WESTMINSTER politician Pete Wishart last night reacted with anger to lack of action on ticket touts, following chaotic scenes concerning the sale of briefs for this year’s T in the Park music festival.

The Perth and North Perthshire MP expressed his disappointment at the decision of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee to back plans for a levy on tickets sold from online companies.

Sixty-nine thousand early bird tickets for this year’s T in the Park event at Balado, Kinross-shire, were sold out in less than an hour in 2007.

But many of these later appeared on the internet site eBay at inflated prices.

This was condemned by festival director Geoff Ellis, who is a long-term campaigner against ticket touts.

And this view has also been sternly backed by Mr Wishart who accuses such practices of “ripping off” music fans.

“Ticket touting is now a massive, well organised, co-ordinated undertaking that rips off fans and artists alike,” he told The Courier.

“I’m disappointed that the Commons select committee didn’t listen to the many representations from the live music industry and move to have the practice banned.

“In my constituency the award-winning T in the Park festival saw all 69,000 tickets sell out in an hour only to find them available on the internet a few hours later at highly inflated prices.

“Surely it is right for Government to protect consumers from this type of rip off.”

And Mr Wishart fears the present status quo only plays into the hands of ticket touts and not true music fans.

He added, “Because of government failure to tackle this problem it is left to the promoters themselves to come up with solutions.

“Glastonbury are introducing a system of photo pre-registration to beat the touts and T in the Park have had to cancel tickets sold through eBay.

“This half-hearted suggestion will do nothing to protect fans or help promoters and festivals beat the touts.”

And Mr Ellis said he too was aggrieved at the latest outcome and highlighted the money made from touting.

“The government’s consistent failure to protect the public from touts has seen the growth of a secondary ticketing market which itself is now worth an estimated £200m a year,” he said.