The festival industry hopes that a new solution will prevent ticket fraud – NRK Culture and Entertainment

"If you're fooled this year, you've done something fundamentally wrong," says Vinjerock sales director Carl Frithjof Tidemand-Johannessen at NRK.

This summer, NRK was able to tell the story of hundreds of people who were scammed at various festivals across the country.

About fifty people are scammed each year in Vinjerock – the festival also claims that numbers have increased in recent years.

"It's sad and it's time to end," said Tidemand-Johannessen.

The first time it's done

On Friday, Vinjerock tickets will go on sale.

For many years, the mountain festival has attracted a great deal of interest. Last year, the 3,000 tickets were sold in seconds.

Tidemand-Johannessen says that it's usually right after ticket sales that many people are trying to cheat.

That's what they hope to change.

To resell the ticket, please contact TicketCo via a form on the Vinjerock pages. The ticket will then be put up for sale and, if it is sold before June 1, the money will be returned from the service. If the ticket is not sold, there is not much to do.

– This is the proof of the bomb. Due to the fact that we are sending new tickets, this will be totally safe, says TicketCo Managing Director Kåre Bottolfsen.

"It also seems like it might be more difficult to get resale tickets?

– Yes, you can say that. But the goal is to make it safe, so it will be an evaluation of the interest. It is also a test project. We will therefore gather the necessary experience to see how things can be done differently in the future, "said Bottolfsen, adding that they may consider using self-service technology.

If you want a friend to buy the ticket, it is also possible to book the sale, he explains.

– It's the first time we've done something like this. We have been discussing the manufacture of this technology for a long time, but we have not been able to prioritize it so far. We are very excited about the public response, he says.

"There may be things we have not received, so we hope people will have ice cream," said Tidemand-Johannessen.

Think it was time

The general director of the Norwegian concert organizers (KAN), Tone Østerdal, is in favor of the test project.

"It's been a long time since the subject is on the agenda and there's a growing problem, so it's high time someone starts something like this," she says.

– Why has it not been done for a long time?

"The industry has been taken, but the distributors had to be ready with innovation and technology.There are more solutions abroad, but now the time has passed too, says Østerdal.

She does not know of any other festivals that have started right now, but she says Ticketmaster, as they know, will come up with a similar solution for the new year.