TOUTS are cashing in on the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and the city’s arts festivals, selling hundreds of tickets on the black market for up to 10 times their face value.

Organisers are concerned that the massive level of profiteering could threaten the reputation of some of Scotland’s most prestigious events.

More than 200,000 tickets for the Tattoo went on sale through official channels last December and were sold by April. However, last week pairs of tickets for the event, priced at £18, were being resold for up to £180 on eBay, the online auctioneer. Single tickets for better seating areas, worth £33, went for more than £100. Tickets for the Edinburgh film and book festivals have also appeared on the website.

The Tattoo, which takes place on the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle every summer during the city’s international arts festival, is Scotland’s most famous military spectacle, and is hugely popular with foreign tourists.

About 11m people have attended the event during its 54-year history and it is estimated to have generated £88m for the Scottish economy.

This year is will be subject to tighter security following the series of attacks on the London public transport system by suicide bombers.

Organisers of the three-week long event, which this year commemorates the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, said they were deeply concerned at the new trend. They are now investigating whether any accredited tour operators, who receive around half the allocation of tickets, are responsible for reselling them.

“We are asking the public to beware of inflated prices and we are monitoring the situation,” said Alan Smith, a spokesman for the Tattoo. “Our strategy has been to make the Tattoo as accessible as possible and this is totally against the spirit of that.”

Iain Whyte, a Conservative councillor, said: “This has never been much of a problem in the past but it may be that, as internet auction sites become more popular, some people will start to take advantage.

“Tattoo organisers might have to look more closely at their system of block booking.”

The growth of eBay has led to escalating problems with ticket touts and profiteering at public events. Last month, Bob Geldoff forced the company to remove the sale of Live8 tickets from its site when it emerged they were being sold for profit.

Other Edinburgh festivals are also affected this year. Two tickets for a sell-out event at the film festival, featuring Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, priced at £15, sold for £156 after attracting 20 bids. Another pair have now been added to the site priced at £40.

Tickets for several events at the book festival were also added to the auction site last week but have yet to be sold.

The practice was condemned as “offensive” by the book festival director, Catherine Lockerbie, who has frozen ticket prices for five years in an attempt to make the event more accessible.

“I’m not at all happy about our tickets appearing on eBay. Where tickets are sold for more than the cover price, it is pure profiteering on the back of our hard work,” she said. “It’s offensive and does us no favours — the book festival doesn’t benefit, and neither does the author.”

Richard Ambrose, a spokesman for eBay defended the site’s right to list the tickets. “This is all about supply and demand and usually indicates that the distribution mechanism is not reaching the people who want tickets. “EBay offers buyers far more protection than buying tickets from traditional touts,” he added.

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