Harry Potter and the Cursed Child tickets touted online for £1,500 sparking fan anger

Roaring success: the first preview of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Nigel Howard
Hatty Collier23 November 2016

Harry Potter fans vented their anger after a fresh batch of tickets for the franchise’s Cursed Child play were being touted online for hundreds of pounds above face value.

The latest batch of 60,000 tickets for the award-winning West End production was released today.

But fans of the wizarding franchise, who missed out when trying to buy tickets this morning, grew angry after discovering seats on sale on eBay and StubHub just hours after they were released.

They criticised the original ticket sellers Nimax and ATG on social media and posted messages to writer JK Rowling.

A spokeswoman for the production said "significant progress" was being made with policing those reselling tickets and called on the Government to "enforce current legislation" and bring in stronger measures to target touts.

The latest seats, which were priced from £15, went on sale at 11am for performances from December until February 2018.

One eBay listing posted just hours after the tickets were released was offering four seats for £1,500.

Vera Solomon posted: "@jk-rowling @HPPlayLDN still queuing for Cursed Child tix and ticket touts already reselling tickets for ££££ how is this ok?"

Jude Harley added: "Resale already at £1800 for #CursedChild... no words! @jk-rowling we need a better system."

Other fans complained about the website crashing.

Stuart Prater posted: "@NimaxTheatres I finally get to the front of the queue get 2 tickets in my basket and the website crashes."

Lucy Pinker said: "Not gonna lie, pretty upset that when I went to enter my details for my Cursed Child tickets it threw me out the site."

Stef Thetford said she had been twice kicked off the website as well as the phone booking office, writing: "@NimaxTheatres so website kicks me off twice as front of queue and now phone lines has done the same!! Good grief!”

A spokeswoman for the production said: "As producers there is only so much we can do without the Government enforcing the current legislation along with bringing in stronger measures to target touts on the secondary market specifically.

"We are adding our voice to the significant pressure from the entertainment industry to raise awareness of this issue and make this a key priority."

Addressing website difficulties, she said: "With many people trying to purchase tickets, the ticketing systems are very busy.

"Customers having difficulties booking due to any technical issues are being contacted directly by our ticketing partners to help them complete their bookings."

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