It all started last night when a link was passed around a few Facebook accounts, claiming to have access to a “friends and family” link for the Black Sabbath British Summer Time Festival show in Hyde Park next week where you could buy tickets for just £2.50. Thinking this was an internal link for the band’s guest list or for people connected to promoters AEG Live, Rock Sins wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it.
Come this morning and the link was doing the rounds on Twitter, spreading like wildfire. Except it was no longer just for the Black Sabbath instalment of British Summer Time, other dates of the festival including those featuring Arcade Fire, Neil Young, McBusted and Tom Jones were all available for £2.50. Understandably thousands of fans snapped up the tickets, not entirely sure whether they would get them or not but when the price was only £2.50 taking a punt was quite understandable.
Speculation raged across the Internet as to whether they’d be honoured or not with various people claiming they’d spoke to AEG or AXS (the ticketing website responsible) with the response that unless the booking was made from an AEG email address the bookings would be refunded and cancelled but the latest indication, as reported by The IB Times UK, who have spoken directly to AEG is that it was an internal link that was leaked and that all tickets bought in this way will be honoured. The links to purchase the tickets have since been taken down.
Quite understandably, the IB Times has speculated (as have we and numerous other outlets) that this was a publicity stunt to drive up awareness, interest and ticket sales for the British Summer Time events. Others think this is just AEG making the best of an unfortunate situation. Whatever the reasons, we know an awful lot of people seem to have secured unbelievably cheap tickets to what could turn out to be Black Sabbath’s last ever UK gig!
Rock Sins will be reporting on the ground from British Summer Time in Hyde Park next Friday and will have a full review of the event soon after, along with interviews with some of the bands performing on the day. Black Sabbath are of course headlining the event with support from Soundgarden, Faith No More, Motorhead, Soulfly, our friends in Hang The Bastard, Blitz Kids, Bo Ningen and many more. The full line up is on the poster below. Stay tuned for any further news on today’s biggest story of the day.
