No Dice: the house always wins

I'm not sure when I even became aware of them, but the ticketing company Dice seem to be everywhere now. Every miserable little gig I go to in east London seems to involve them. Dice, Dice, Dice. Every bloody gig Facebook page has a link through to them for tickets.

The death rattle

Is it a major problem? Er, no, but that won't stop me complaining anyway ...The vast majority of gigs I drag myself to in London are free ones. It's one of the "perks" (if that's the right word) of living in a city  almost unfit for human habitation a times. Fine, that's the Faustian pact I've struck with the place. Put up with hassles, suck in those carcinogenic street fumes, meet the devil a few years earlier than I might otherwise have done - but at least have a bit of culture in my life. But half the free gigs I go to these days now seem to have a Dice ticketing page anyway. I'm being urged/nudged/cajoled into "reserving my place". Never mind that the majority of shows I attend are half-empty or three-quarters-empty (and not infrequently 90% empty). Still the Dice pages are there - imploring, instructing, getting me signed up. Obviously, I routinely ignore Dice's shouty instructions ("reserve your place", "download the app") and just do what I've always done - turn up. And needless to say, if it was ever seriously going to be so crowded at a gig that I might need to reserve a ticket, it's very unlikely I'd want to go in the first place.

Nevertheless, Dice are becoming ubiquitous. Going to a paid gig now seems to nearly always involve them. And then you're apparently required to put their rather tacky app on your phone (and quickly uninstall it afterwards if you've any sense). OK, for an habitué of the no/small-audience gig scene it's not a major problem - just an unwelcome intrusion from a bossy digital company clearly desperate to get their hands on your data and marketise it. Dice's main pitch appears to be that they don't do booking fees, they help stop street touts and they don't dabble in the inflated "secondary" ticketing market. Which all sounds laudable enough. But for someone who spends all their time at the small-gig end of the music scene, Dice's pushy download-the-app behaviour still grates. I don't see why I should download their app or anyone else's just to show up at a free gig (or to buy a ticket online for that matter), and as far as possible I'll endeavour never to do so. Music is already awash with unpleasantly insistent marketing as it is. I might have struck my own little deal with the devil (given he has the best tunes etc), but I'd rather keep the dead hand of commerce as far away as possible. Nope, be warned - the Dice are loaded. The house always wins ...