'I will pay £2,000 for Black Sabbath tickets'

Black Sabbath super fans say they are willing to spend small fortunes when it comes to getting a ticket for the legendary heavy metal band's final show.

Since pre-sale tickets went live on Tuesday, fans have been scrambling for the chance to see the Brummie rockers perform one last time.

Some people, though, have been left shocked by prices for the Back to the Beginning show at Villa Park in Birmingham on 5 July.

They start at about £200 including booking fees, and can run to thousands of pounds for premium options, but that will not put off Alex Woodford who says he is willing to pay up to £2,000 on tickets for himself and his brother.

General sale tickets for the show, which reunites Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, go on sale at 10:00 GMT on Friday.

Also on the bill are Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Gojira, Halestorm and Alice in Chains.

"This is the gig that everyone's been waiting for," Mr Woodford told BBC Radio WM.

"This really is Ozzy's final show with Sabbath. I know it sounds crazy but I would be willing to pay silly money for it because it's going to be a once-in-a-lifetime show."

He added: "When you break down the acts that are there and the price it would cost to see each of those acts, for me, it would be worth it."

Mr Woodford said he tried to get tickets during the pre-sale release earlier this week but once he had logged on to the Ticketmaster website, there were 6,000 people ahead of him in the virtual queue.

"By the time I got in, the seats were just disappearing, I couldn't secure any tickets," he explained.

He said he would try again with a Live Nation pre-sale on Thursday and, if unsuccessful, when tickets were released for general sale the following day.

Many people have taken to social media to complain about the prices and the difficulty of securing tickets with demand so high.

Posting on the official event page on Facebook, one person said: "It's difficult enough to afford a gig in this economy but the sheer lack of availability means some of us will never have the chance to see our idols perform in the flesh."

Concerns have also been raised about people potentially being caught out by scams and paying inflated prices on unofficial resale sites.

Ticket sales and security specialist Reg Walker told BBC Radio WM that people should stick with the official ticket websites.

"If you start googling Black Sabbath tickets, the sponsored ads are going to be companies that have nothing to do with the event," he said.

"You're going to be buying from touts who frequently don't have the tickets and you run the risk of getting nothing or simply being ripped off."

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