Outrage as countless students turned away following ‘touting’ fears at WHQ

All revellers with ID not matching the name on the ticket were refused entry from World Headquarters on Saturday night for the Mungo’s Hi-Fi party.

This followed disputes on ticket exchange pages on Facebook. People were told they may not sell on their unneeded tickets, or buy tickets for others.

Queues formed as understandably disappointed punters tried unsuccessfully to negotiate entry.

Alex, a second-year, said: “The thing is that the majority of students re-selling these tickets aren’t trying to make a buck, but just can’t go to the event after purchasing ticket”.

Many students were forced to either pay a second entry for the upstairs party, which was £8 on top of the redundant £10 Mungo’s ticket, or go home.

The disagreements began on the ‘Castle Leazes Ticket Exchange’ page, which says in the description ‘Note: no resales for WHQ’ after an issue last year.

The conflict led to this being posted by the page managers:

Several angry clubbers vented their rage.

Jake Nevens, who has started a new ticket exchange page called ‘Newcastle Ethical Ticket Exchange (NETE) said: “certain people have been taking advantage of it for quite some time now, culminating in the incidents surrounding Mungo’s Hi-Fi’s event at World HQ last Saturday.

“We’re excited to see how this plays out for Newcastle’s music scene in the near and long-term future”.

Their aim is to have all tickets resold at face value and avoid posts selling “to the highest bidder”.

Both pages, and others, continue to run with WHQ not allowing their tickets to be resold via this method.

We contacted the owner of World Headquarters who said the club would rather communicate with customers directly via social media.

While it isn’t right for students to profit from ticket resale, the consensus around campus is that people were turned away despite paying to see a show they had sought tickets and paid for, including those that were bought at face value or as gifts.