The promoters of the Big Day Out music festival have been ordered to change a warning on their tickets, which was designed to stop online scalping of tickets.

The eBay website took action against Creative Festival Entertainment in the Federal Court in Sydney, arguing the condition of sale was in breach of the Trade Practices Act.

The judge agreed, finding the warning incorrectly asserted that Big Day Out organisers would cancel all tickets that had been resold online for profit.

Big Day Out producer Ken West says it is a victory for scalpers.

“What I’m really flabbergasted about is that the consumers rights have been lost today, because they’re saying that the ticket scalper is being protected within the system while the consumer can be forced to pay two, three times the face value,” Mr West said.

eBay managers say the ruling shows that event organisers must be responsible for stopping ticket scalpers.

Company spokesman Daniel Felier says scalping would not be a problem if there were tighter controls on the original sales.

“What is incumbent on promoters to do is to make sure that they get tickets into the hands of genuine fans in the first case,” Mr Felier said.

Posted: 12|18|06 at 8:50 am. Filed under: Auction News.