Paleo Without The Importuning

Having sold out for the 11th year in succession, Switzerland’s Paleo-Nyon Festival also managed to strike a blow against the touts that regularly hang around the entrance.

This year the gates were moved back to make sure the ground outside was still on land the organisers rent to stage the festival, which meant they effectively had legal control of it.

“Importuning of the public by ticket touts significantly diminished,” as the Paleo press statement put it.

“In Switzerland it’s not illegal to resell tickets if you are standing on the public highway, so this year we made sure to include the area outside the gates within the festival grounds,” explained Paleo-Nyon press chief Christophe Platel.

The festival also held back 1,500 day tickets for each day (July 20-25), which meant there were always some face value tickets available on show day.

“It worked because the touts were selling day tickets costing 60 Swiss francs ($54.68) for a third and sometimes a sixth of the face value,” Platel told Pollstar.

“Some of [the scalpers] did so badly that they said they won’t be coming back next year.”

The touts did get a little bit of their cash back on the last day, which featured a strong French lineup including Indochine, Alain Souchon, Renan Luce, and Féfé, after the 1,500 tickets that Paleo had held back were snapped up in 12 minutes.

The other acts helping entertain the 35,000 daily visitors to Paleo-Nyon included Iggy & The Stooges, Paolo Nutini, Motorhead, N.E.R.D., Crosby, Stills & Nash, Gentleman, Jamiroquai and Laurent Garnier.