Angry parents have hit out at ticket touts after fake tickets sparked a mass rammy outside rapper Digga D's Glasgow gig.
Nine police cars and an ambulance were called to the O2 Academy on Eglinton Street after fights broke out outside the venue on Monday night. Crowds of youngsters who believed they had purchased legitimate tickets for the show were turned away at the door after barcodes on the fake briefs wouldn't scan for staff.
The chaos turned into violence after furious revellers who had queued for three hours were knocked back. Footage shared with the Record shows a dozen officers in attendance outside the venue.
Police Scotland said two 16-year-old boys were arrested for threatening and abusive behaviour at the scene.
Lynn, from Johnstone, had to pick up her daughter and two friends from the concert after they were told at the door their tickets were fake. The girls, aged between 14 and 16 had secured free tickets from website Eventbrite, but staff at the O2 were unable to scan the barcodes.
Lynn told the Record: "My daughter and all her friends had tickets and got refused. I had to pick them up at 9pm after they queued for hours to get inside.
"They purchased them on a ticket website and so did their friends."
"All the girls were excited to go but very disappointed not getting in. It was just as well I did after all the carnage. It was really upsetting that there was so much fighting afterwards."
Carrie, from Airdrie, said her son was also knocked back. She said: "The queue to get into the venue was very long and my son's QR code wouldn’t scan. He asked the security to try it again and it didn't work. So he had to leave himself while his two friends went in.
"It was a disgrace and he was really disappointed as he was really looking forward to the gig."
Lynn, from Glasgow, whose daughter did get into the gig after purchasing a £25 ticket, said she was alarmed when she arrived to collect her.
She told the Record: "It was a disgrace. I was there from about 9.30pm waiting for my daughter and all hell broke loose. Two police vans and two cars came flying down the road.
"There was a mass brawl with around 60 kids whose tickets weren't scanning. The kids had bought them from online websites but the original tickets had apparently already been scanned and their tickets were duplicates.
"There were so many kids fighting, and bottles getting smashed. This wouldn’t have happened if the touts didn’t do this. Disgraceful."
Craig Douris travelled from Dundee to drop his son Cameron off after buying him tickets for his 17th birthday, but the youngster didn't get inside after queueing for hours.
Craig said: "The tickets for the gig were a gift for his 17th birthday and I dropped him and his friends off in plenty of time for the concert at around 6.30pm - but he started calling me just after 9pm saying that they’d had to leave the queue because of fighting.
"My son said that eventually the doors to the venue had been closed because so many people were going mental about not getting in because of fake tickets.
"Youngsters were kicking the doors of the venue and a surge of people pushed past security. Police eventually showed up about half 9 but people were still not getting in so he asked me to pick them up. It's really disappointing."
A spokesperson for the O2 Academy in Glasgow said: "A large crowd gathered outside O2 Academy Glasgow during the evening of Monday, October 3 due to a high number of refusals at the point of entry. Officers attended to support crowd dispersal, and we are liaising directly with Police Scotland to assist with any further enquiries."
A spokesperson for the Scottish Ambulance Service said: "We received a call at 2147 hours on Monday to attend an incident at the O2 Academy in Glasgow. We dispatched three crews to attend and treated one patient at the scene.”
An Eventbrite spokesperson said: Our platform enables anyone to create an event and to sell tickets for it within minutes, but we do not allow (re-)selling tickets for someone else’s event. In this case, the Digga D concert in Glasgow was ticketed by another company, and someone had created an “event” on Eventbrite offering free tickets for this concert, presumably to facilitate unauthorised ticket reselling outside of our platform.
"This event seems to be one of those very rare cases that have slipped through our net (the event has been removed now). We are sorry for the bad experience the customer had."
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