German courts have banned the secondary ticketing site Viagogo from selling tickets to metal band Rammstein’s 2019 stadium tour in an effort to limit ticket scalping.
According to a press release from promoters MCT Agenteur, Viagogo is forbidden to “allow the sales of tickets for the 2019 Rammstein stadiums in Germany” and to “assert that they are valid tickets for entry.” Tickets sold to the tour from Viagogo will now be considered invalid.
This ruling came to fruition after MCT made personalized tickets to Rammstein’s tour, limiting re-sale to only one site: Eventim’s FanSALE platform, MunchenTicket. When tickets originally went onsale, Rammstein sold over 800,000 tickets in Germany within hours, NME reports.
“The band is pleased that the district court of Hamburg has agreed with our [arguments] and issued the ban,” Rammstein said in a statement. “The court’s decision is a warning signal to anyone who thinks they can resell massively overpriced and invalid Rammstein tickets.”
The ban also follows recent trends to eliminate the secondary market; Ticketmaster announced its plan to cut their secondary ticketing site Seatwave this past summer, and Australia’s Ticketek plans to launch a price-capped ticket exchange system this year.
Despite the ban, Viagogo still lists Rammstein tickets for sale in Frankfurt, Hannover, Berlin, Rostock, Dresden, Munich, and Gelsenkirchen. Ticket prices range from £351 ($450 USD) and £780 ($1,000 USD).
Rammstein is due to kick-off their tour on May 27, 2019 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, followed by shows across Europe in cities like Barcelona, Copenhagen, Paris, and Moscow. The trek will wrap-up late August in Vienna, Italy.
