FANS are not being ripped off by ticket touts according to the boss of Scotland’s biggest music venue.

The chief executive of the Scottish Events Campus, which includes the Hydro and the Armadillo said while he would prefer there were no touts, they are responding to demand form fans.

Peter Duthie, said the number of tickets offered on the ‘secondary market is low and only exists because people are willing to pay the inflated prices.

He said: “The secondary ticket market gets a bit of a bad press. Would I prefer it didn’t exist? Yes.

But who is driving it? The consumer because people are prepared to pay the prices.

“Lots don’t sell for vastly inflated prices. It is driven by supply and demand.”

Speaking at a Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Glasgow Talks event Mr Duthie addressed the argument that genuine fans miss out because touts have snapped up thousands of tickets.

Mr Duthie said: “If somebody pays £500 for Ed Sheeran tickets, I’m guessing they are a true fan. It’s just whether you can afford it.

“I don’t accept the ripped off idea. You are making a conscious decision to buy them.”

He said touts go through the same process as fans to get tickets.

He added: “They tap the keys and get lucky and sell them on. Is it ideal? No.

Alternative methods of distributing tickets had been considered like an airline model of offering a certain number of front row high price tickets first then release others. But he said that has been discounted.

Mr Duthie said there is a “misconception” about the number of tickets which fall into the hands of touts.

He cited the Ed Sheeran shows at the Hydro next month which has attracted controversy with tickets selling for hundreds of pounds.

He said: “It was in the low hundreds out of 24,000 tickets. What tends to drive a press frenzy is people say ‘I can’t get tickets because of touts’.”

However, he added: “We could have sold out Ed Sheeran ten times over.

“It is disappointing. I would prefer touts weren’t in and around there, but it needs to be viewed in proportion.”

Mr Duthie was outlining the £150m expansion plans at the SEC for upgraded conference facilities to make it among the best in the world.

He said: I want the first name on people’s mind when looking for best practice to be Glasgow.”