Sunday 9 November 2014

No More Touts Part 5 - My Final Words

Okay, one last post before November 17th.* This is me talking. No more statistics, no more news stories, no more analysing. This is just you and me chatting over a beer.

A few days ago, I wrote a post that I thought might interest some of the few people who pass by this site. Never in a million years did I think that those words would go as crazy as they did. For those not in the know, cycle back to November 1st and read a post titled No More Touts.

You see, I wrote that original post out of anger. I'd seen some of the negativity that surrounded the whole No More Touts campaign. And it stung. Really, really stung. Heck, on September 19th 2014, I was an outsider looking in, a passing music lover who'd seen a good idea and decided to support it. The fact that the idea spoke to me on so many levels certainly helped. And here were people picking apart what was being done. To see so much spite and negativity levelled towards people who were doing something to change the industry really hurt me. Yet I know from experience that you can't reason with haters. On top of that, one of my pet hates is to see hatred thrown at people who are just trying to do some good in a world that's already ravaged by darkness (I'm also a firm believer in "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all".).

In the original post, I mentioned that I'd been a part of the “Rage for Christmas #1” campaign. Like the No More Touts one, it was a grass roots effort that took off. Even if the song hadn't reached number one and even if the band hadn't played the show (again, they were under no obligation to do so but did it out of the goodness of their hearts) the Rage campaign did something amazing.

It raised over £162,000for Shelter, the UK's homeless charity. Even now people still donate in the Rage campaign's name.

I noticed, while reading up on the No More Touts campaign, that the people behind it also support a charity (I've also noticed they've been writing about this too in the past few days. Hi, guys!). Given to Live makes it possible for people who are vulnerable or feel excluded to go to live music events. So far, they've had a lot of success, including the Invictus Games back in September.

So, if you burrow a little deeper and don't take everything at face value, you discover a deeper, more beautiful meaning to this. Even if the band don't play, this campaign has taken the issue of ticket touts to some of the biggest powers in the music industry. People are sitting up and listening. It's making headline news again and again. People know that there's something going on and revolutions don't start overnight.

Most of all it's doing something good by giving others the chance to experience what many of us take for granted.

The music connects us, let's not forget that. We're all coming from nothing here and, through this, the world can be changed for the better.

And I've met a bunch of awesome and very cool people through it!

“The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” -John Bingham



*Maybe. There may be more.

No comments:

Post a Comment