Monkeys PIN hopes on beating the touts

We're always interested to hear bands' plans to beat touts, and are especially interested in the Arctic Monkeys new scheme for their UK dates.

You register in advance - by 7pm tonight via arcticmonkeys.com mailing list. You then have to respond to an email, detailing which venue and night you'd like to go to - no following the band round the country allowed. Then, using a "completely random" computer (we know, technically, there's no such thing as a completely random computer, but near enough, eh?) lucky people will be chosen. They'll be sent a unique PIN code which will then, when plugged into a PC, allow them to complete the purchase of a ticket.

Lots of hoops, admittedly, but we're not entirely sure we can see the tout-beating part of it: indeed, by pumping up the ticket frenzy and complicating the process, we'd imagine the returns from beating this system will be much larger than if they just put the tickets online and sold them in the ordinary way. Certainly, if we made a living reselling tickets, we'd be spending most of today opening Yahoomail and Gmail accounts to sign up multiple times for chances to enter the lottery. (Actually, if we genuinely wanted to see the band, we'd be doing that, too, to increase our chances.)

The trouble with this lottery idea is that - without any link between purchaser and person using the ticket, and the opportunity to enter an unlimited number of times - it's really no more toutproof than the equally random process of switching on a webserver and flogging the tickets to the first people able to get on.

Roll up and try your luck anyway:
onday 9th April Guildhall, Southampton
Tuesday 10th University Great Hall, Exeter
Thursday 12th Astoria, London
Friday 13th Astoria, London
Saturday 14th Academy, Liverpool
Monday 16th Academy, Newcastle
Tuesday 17th Caird Hall, Dundee
Wednesday 18th Barrowlands, Glasgow
Friday 20th Academy, Birmingham
Saturday 21st The Leadmill, Sheffield
Sunday 22nd The Leadmill, Sheffield