Stereoboard Rejects Proposal To Cap Resale Prices of Concert & Festival Tickets
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Written by Dave Ball
With Reading & Leeds festival tickets going on sale yesterday the argument about ticket resale has surfaced once again with the assumption being that tickets for the festival would have sold out in double quick time and secondary websites would have had highly inflated tickets for sale almost immediately.
Earlier this year Stereoboard published a feature here discussing a proposed private members bill which labelled all secondary ticket resale websites as an enemy to music fans, lumping legitimate exchange sites in with dangerous scam websites. The proposal, made by Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, who tried to claim for a £900 TV during the MP expenses scandal, was 'talked out' and will be brought up again in early May.
Seeing an opportunity to get public support, reports based around the festival ticket sales appeared prior to the sale opening yesterday, however the slow public demand may actually cause public support to backfire. Part of the proposal is that there would be a 10% increase 'cap' on any tickets resold, effectively only partially covering the cost of booking fees. What is missed here however is that over 50% of tickets sold through secondary sales sites go for face value or less.
As mentioned in the previous feature, legitimate exchange sites work to a supply and demand model. While this often means the bigger events see tickets selling for above face value it also means that many events which don't sell as well as expected will give opportunities for people to buy tickets for below face value. My Chemical Romance's recent arena tour didn't sell out and some lucky punters were able to get in at vastly discounted prices and with sales so far for both sites not going as quickly as expected the same may happen for the August Bank Holiday dual site festival at Reading and Leeds.
Melvin Benn, MD of Festival Republic who run the Reading & Leeds Festivals is behind the idea of the cap saying 'I've been for it (a percentage increase cap) for many years. People will still try to set up illegal websites but what it would do is give the public an absolute knowledge that if they're trying to sell at more than that percentage, it's almost certainly dodgy and illegal."
Strong words, although with the festival having a secondary sale site (Viagogo) as one of their official partners, leaves some questions as to how strongly Benn stands behind those words. Joe Cohen from Seatwave, who are another of the legitimate secondary exchange websites, unsurprisingly disagrees with Hodgson's proposal. He said: "When you put this idea into practice is where it falls down and turns into rubbish. There's no place on the planet where a cap works."
Stereoboard.com founder Nigel Sachdev also disagreed with Benn on this issue saying "Any cap would ensure there is no longer a business model for a legitimate secondary resale market, taking away an industry which contributes vast sums to the UK taxation system. I disagree wholeheartedly with this assumption that regulation will stop the scam operators. If anything it will do the complete opposite, it will empower them. They effectively have no product to sell so they will happily sell tickets within the cap and appear legitimate. Any regulation would further muddy the water and put UK music fans at further risk of fraud."
Even the artists themselves are split. Recent chart topper Adele is against resale, saying she thinks there should be a complete cap while Gerard Way of Reading & Leeds headliner My Chemical Romance believes there should be secondary sales but fans should respect each other and choose to sell their tickets at closer to face value. Another Reading & Leeds performer Elbow's frontman Guy Garvey says he would support anything up to a 50% mark up on tickets.
Sachdev added, "The true issue here is not about ticket resale its really about the supply of tickets simply not meeting public demand. If artists, and their managers, really care about their fans not being ripped off they would ensure that every fan wanting to see them play live gets a fair chance to do so, and at a fair price from the outset. If a concert sells out, why not announce more dates? Meet public demand. It's not complicated."
"In reality though, artists, promoters and managers want their events to appear sold out. It creates an immense buzz and the music industry thrives on this perceived popularity. Anyway, in most instances tickets for sold out events are sold for less than face value closer to the event date, should they too get capped at 10% below face value? Should ticket agents offer a refund policy? We need to be careful that we don't cut off our nose to spite our face here. There is nothing wrong with the current system, other than ticket scammers which are the real enemy to music fans."
Stereoboard is working hard to stamp out the type of illegal scam websites which trick so many people every year into giving up their hard earned cash with no ticket arriving in return and have set up a blacklist for known scam sites (stereoboard.com/ticket-scams) while offering ticket price comparisons across secondary resale sites as well as all the major primary ticket agencies. All secondary resale sites partnered with Stereoboard offer tight consumer protection and ticket guarantees meaning customers can buy, safe in the knowledge they will receive genuine tickets or their money back. Stereoboard also produced the 'Access All Areas' short film recently to raise awareness of the dangers of buying from unknown sources. You can view the 'Access All Areas' video below.
While we understand paying over face value can be frustrating, outlawing regulated secondary resale sites would mean a return to the dark days where ticket touts wandered around venues and people paid cash, at vastly inflated prices, with no guarantee of real tickets. The current system may not be ideal for everyone but it does provide two valuable services. Firstly, a chance to purchase tickets for an event that has sold out before you could get one and secondly the peace of mind that whatever you choose to pay, your tickets will be legitimate ones.
This is an issue which is always going to divide the music industry but one thing you can be sure of is that any ticket you buy via Stereoboard.com will be a legitimate ticket whether bought from a primary seller or one of our approved secondary exchange sites.
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
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