Edinburgh Military Tattoo - cancelled

Alan Smith, the marketing manager of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, has disappointed many would be attendees that want to buy tickets on eBay. Despite the fact that all 208,848 tickets for the event have been sold they are writing to people selling on their Tattoo tickets on eBay and cancelling those that aren't pulled from the site. With thirty odd sets of tickets currently listed on the site there are going to be a lot of unhappy customers when they find their purchase is worthless.

Smith complains "The public are being asked to pay four or five times over the face value of these tickets, which is plain wrong." However 22 of the tickets for sale are auctions so buyers aren't being asked to pay over the odds, they're trying to buy at the price they're willing to pay for tickets that otherwise are unavailable. Why does Smith think he has the right to deny them the chance to attend when they so obviously are more than willing to pay to do so?

With eBay buying the Stubhub ticket sales website it'll be interesting to see what happens in the future.