My family of 3 want to get tickets to see Coldplay when we are visitng Paris on September 7. They are playing at Parc Des Princes, which appears to be a large venue. However, the concert is sold out (I have checked fnac.com and livenation.fr).

My question is, how hard is it to scalp tickets before the show? Is it even legal? We are American tourist who don't speak any French. I realize we will probably be paying more than face value.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you.

I think you are the scalpee, not the one who would do the scalping. YOu will find scalpers outside such a venue, I'd bet anything, there are lots of preteen or early teen scalpers at a lot of concerts.

Yes, it is illegal. It is the loi du 27 juin 1919, which forbids selling tickets at a price higher than face value:

http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affich...Texte=20090624

Please don't have anything to do with these parasites. Some of these guys are so organised these days they have roomfulls of computers buying up concert tickets as soon as they become available, and then they pass them on to others through ebay or outside the venue at vastly inflated prices. All this black market activity severely limits the availability and drives up the costs for genuine fans.

I still rub my hands with glee at the thought of all of the scalpers who bought large numbers of tickets for the Michael Jackson concerts for resale.

Yes, tickets are scalped in Paris. For concerts like that, you can find little stickers on the lampposts of the Champs Elysées with mobile phone numbers to call. There will also be scalpers in front of the Parc des Princes (which holds about 50,000 max, but certainly less for concert configuration).

Although scalping tickets or using such tickets is illegal, I would worry more about counterfeit tickets. Even though there are holograms and security codes on most such tickets now, do you know what a real one looks like?

Often concert organisers will cancel tickets which were not sold through their own website. They have a record of all tickets sold and will have no problem cancelling tickets and re issuing them through their legal site.
It happens quite a bit here in the Netherlands now. Livenation are particularly keen on doing this.

you are probably better off utilizing a ticket broker, rather than a scalper. the first thought is to avoid counterfeit tickets. I'm sure if you do a google search on ticket broker, you will find outlets like our StubHub, etc. Maybe even check Stubhub....

1) Yes I am the scalpee.
2) Are there any signts besides fnac.com or livenation that sell at face?
3) I am hoping tickets would be cheaper (closer to face) outside before the show, as tickets now on ebay and viagogo are ridiculously high. I am not aware of a stubhub for France.