We've had a huge response from fans of One Direction and Coldplay since our item in Ticketmaster last week. They were angry to see that tickets that were sold out on Ticketmaster were appearing sometimes just minutes later on Ticketmaster's sister site GetMeIn.com, at hugely inflated prices.
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And is it any wonder, when you look at some of the prices they've been selling for this week? We spotted One Direction tickets with a face value of around £30 on GetMeIn.com priced at £1,439, and on Viagogo - the biggest ticket re-sale site - at £2,179.
And the websites selling them? They take a cut of up to 25% from every ticket sold.
The companies say they provide a marketplace where genuine fans can buy unwanted tickets at a fair price. They say it's preferable to fans having to deal with touts. But if that really is the case, why isn't there a cap on the prices that can be charged? And it's not just music fans who are calling for a cap on charges - the industry itself thinks it's a good idea.
Watchdog spoke to Ben Turner from the Association of Independent Festivals whose members include Bestival, Creamfields and Secret Garden Party. Ben explained, "We really believe that tickets should not be being sold at inflated prices [...] At the moment, if an Arctic Monkeys show is put on sale, sells out, and the tickets resale at an extra £50, the band are not benefiting from that at all. Bands like Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead [are] two that I know particularly care about this subject - they're not looking to earn that money - they just want to see an end to the inflated prices."
Other high profile artists like Arcade Fire and Kylie have also spoke out against the re-sale trade in tickets, and now even politicians have joined the campaign.
Sharon Hodgson is an MP who has drawn up a Private Member's Bill that would put a cap on the profits people can make from re-selling tickets at highly inflated prices. Sharon told Watchdog, "What a cap would do is to take the profit element out of reselling tickets on the secondary market...and if there's no profit element then you won't get the touts buying the tickets up to try and get their hands on as many as they can - the tickets will be left there for genuine fans to buy at the price intended by the artist.
The government has recognised that action needed to be taken in parliament to protect sports fans in regard to the Olympic tickets. It's only a shame that they don't feel as strongly about protecting music fans."
Ticketmaster Response:
We saw an extraordinary level of demand for One Direction tickets. Ticketmaster was not main ticket retailer for this event and only had a limited number of tickets for these concerts. As demand far outstripped the number of tickets available, there have unfortunately been a large number of disappointed fans. It is important to note that there are a number of places to purchase tickets from the primary market, even for those venues for which Ticketmaster is the preferred ticketing partner. Ticketmaster does not exclusively sell all the tickets and the event organiser will allocate their tickets to multiple agencies and are available via the venue's box office. For many events, Ticketmaster has a limited allocation and therefore resellers secure their tickets from a wide range of outlets.
The ticket resale market, driven by the supply and demand for live events tickets, has always existed.
With all popular events the demand for tickets often outstrips the number of tickets available and the speed of sale can also be affected by the number of pre-sales to fan clubs and priority sponsor groups. This means that the original availability of tickets is greatly reduced when tickets go on sale to the general public.
The internet has enabled the number of ticket resale sites to increase over the past 6 years. As illustrated by BBC Watchdog reports in September 2005, October 2005, January 2007 and March 2009, some of these sites have fraudulently capitalised on consumer demand for live entertainment tickets. The DCMS Select Committee investigated the UK resale market on two occasions and concluded that the entertainment industry needs to offer a market based solution for the legitimate resale of tickets. As a result Ticketmaster purchased GET ME IN! primarily to provide Ticketmaster customers with a safe and secure option for purchasing tickets in the resale market, if they so choose.
Consumer protection is a fundamental principle of our resale market offering. GET ME IN!'s buyer guarantee ensures that when consumers purchase tickets listed by sellers they receive those tickets exactly as promised. Tickets cannot be listed on GET ME IN! until they have been made available to purchase through primary sales channels, unlike other sites which list tickets for events which are not yet on sale. There are no price caps on GET ME IN!, nor are there any price minimums; in fact, tickets for a number of popular events sell for average prices below the original face values. Less than 10% of tickets listed for resale on GET ME IN! are actually resold and the price for these tickets can be significantly lower than the price at which they were originally listed.
We would stress that Ticketmaster never diverts tickets allocated to it for sale at face value to GET ME IN! and all such tickets are priced and sold through Ticketmaster, as stipulated by the event organiser. The vast majority of tickets are sold at face value to fans who attend the event.
We would always advise consumers to go to primary ticketing sites first and to sign-up for email alerts about their favourite artists and events to keep up to date with when tickets are going on sale. They should also come back to primary sites after the general sale date because more tickets can be released by event organisers at a later date. Consumers should also use the main established resale sites for the best protection against fraud.
Additional Information
Ticketmaster accepts that as the leading ticket agency one of its core responsibilities is to offer as many genuine fans as possible the opportunity to buy tickets to the event and to help event organisers sell their tickets, which in turn results in more concerts, more tickets and a greater opportunity for more fans to attend. The vast majority of tickets which are bought by fans through Ticketmaster, other ticket agencies and box offices are bought by fans who intend to go to the event themselves.
However, event organisers are increasingly working with sites like Viagogo, Seatwave and GET ME IN! to offer a market based solution to the UK resale market. GET ME IN! is one of a number of recognised resale sites across the UK. A search for tickets through Google for your favourite artists will list hundreds and hundreds of sites offering tickets. However, many of these sites offer music fans little or no information on the quality or location of these tickets.
We do not believe that legislation to ban the reselling of tickets will prevent this market from existing and it could potentially drive the practice further underground and compromise consumer protection. Many consumers have demonstrated their willingness to pay a market price for tickets.
There are a number of initiatives which we currently undertake to help as many genuine fans as possible buy their event tickets.
Paperless Ticketing
Where one of our clients, a venue or promoter, wants to try and eliminate resale market activity Ticketmaster can put in place our Paperless Ticketing solution. This means the individual who purchases the tickets must arrive at the venue with the actual credit/debit card used to buy the tickets and a form of photo ID in order to gain entry to the venue.
This solution has been implemented very successfully by Ticketmaster a number of times at various events and venues. The lack of access control at many venues means that this solution cannot currently be adopted more widely, however, Ticketmaster believes that linking the identity of the original ticket purchaser to the means of entry, be that through their mobile phone, travel card or credit card could become an increasingly common method of preventing resale.
Ticket limits
The ticket limit per event, which is the number of tickets that can be purchased by any one person at a time, is stipulated to Ticketmaster by the event organiser. This limit normally ranges between 2 and 8 tickets per person.
Ticketmaster undertakes regular checks, especially for high profile high demand events, to identify any obvious multiple bookings. If a multiple booking is identified, any excess tickets are cancelled and the tickets reoffered for sale through Ticketmaster. When requested by an event organiser, Ticketmaster will also make even deeper checks, looking for multiple booking by credit/debit cards; bookings from the same postal address or even from the same IP address.
Prevention of bulk and automated bookings
When a customer buys tickets through Ticketmaster.co.uk they will experience the ReCaptcha technology online which prevents automated systems purchasing bulk numbers of tickets.
Platinum Tickets and Auctions
Another response to the secondary market could be the introduction of dynamic pricing, where the market decides the ticket price. Ticketmaster already adopts Platinum Tickets as one such initiative. Some event organisers allocate a limited number of the best tickets for a high profile event for sale through Ticketmaster, and sometimes GET ME IN!, as official Platinum Tickets priced at a market value. These tickets are gradually released for sale from the on sale date to the day of the event, offering those customers looking to buy the best tickets at a market rate, the option of purchasing from a site offering full consumer protection.
The other key positive about this initiative is that any additional revenue is driven back to the event organiser and ultimately back into the UK's entertainment industry, rather than going to unrelated parties in the secondary market. Similarly, Ticketmaster also offers event organisers the chance to run ticket auctions in order to maximise the revenue generated from an event, many of which are in support of charitable organisations.
Resale Market Users
Pre-sales to closed, but extensive users groups such as fan clubs and sponsors have become a regular part of the ticket sales process. A significant number of tickets are sold through these pre-sales and the result is many of the best tickets are often sold before they are made available to the wider public.
We consider that the sellers that offer tickets on resale sites, such as GET ME IN!, can be broken down into three broad categories:
• Organised sellers that buy tickets from a variety of ticket agencies and venues, not only Ticketmaster. These resellers list their tickets on multiple resale sites.
• The fan who buys more tickets than they actually intend to use and then resell their additional tickets to fund their own purchase and to make a profit.
• The fan whose circumstances or preferences change and they use resale sites to sell their tickets.
The majority of tickets that are listed on resale sites are listed by the first two categories.
Consumer Protection
GET ME IN! puts in place a number of measures to ensure consumers are protected. If a seller fails to deliver the tickets they advertised there are penalties and the buyer receives back 150% of the money they spent. Sellers that advertise tickets they cannot deliver are blocked and banned from using the site. By Ticketmaster and GET ME IN! working together we're trying to deliver greater transparency and protection and improve standards in the resale market
The vast majority of tickets for live events are sold at face value to fans that attend the event themselves
Viagogo Response:
We know how important it is to have a guarantee that you will get the right ticket at the right price. There are very few chancers on our website listing their tickets at extortionate prices, and in fact, around half the tickets sold on our website are listed at or below face value. This includes tickets for massive stars like Rihanna and Katy Perry which are available right now. The remainder are sold at an average premium of around 15% - 20%.
We've been through lengthy debates about regulating ticket resellers before, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport carried out a select committee hearing and a public consultation which concluded that secure websites like ours are in the public interest. It was only a few years ago, before we introduced the concept of secure ticket reselling to the UK, that thousands of people every weekend were left disappointed after buying fake tickets from touts, or fraudulent websites. We're proud that we've had a significant impact on cleaning up a shady marketplace.
A cap on prices is well-intentioned, but ultimately flawed. This is because you can't regulate the touts who would still charge whatever they want. All this would do would be to increase the number of tickets being sold back in the pubs, clubs and car parks of the black market, which would undermine all the work we've been doing to bring security to the market.
Increasingly, the entertainment and sports industries are in agreement that legitimate resellers like us are the best option for consumers, which is why we have a wide range of partners such as the Reading and Leeds Festivals and Madonna's last tour, as well as Chelsea football club. They all understand the importance of providing a safe and secure ticket resale service to fans.
The reality is that there always have been, and there always will be, people reselling tickets. They are either going to do it through a secure exchange or on the black market. Our ethos is to ensure that people can do this securely, legitimately, and with a guarantee that they will get what they paid for.
For further information please contact press@viagogo.com
A DCMS spokesperson said:
"In 2009, the previous administration conducted a consultation on the secondary ticketing market. Rather than regulating, most responses were in favour of the introduction of tighter operating practices by primary ticket distributors, including using technology such as barcodes and paperless tickets. Broadly speaking, the consultation responses suggested that Government intervention should be a last resort.
A separate report by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in 2008 concluded that while intervention was justified on grounds of public order and safety at and around football matches, they recommended that regulatory intervention in the wider secondary ticket market should be considered only as a very last resort. The Committee were also concerned by the real risk that a convenient market, which some consumers had grown accustomed to use and trust, would be driven underground.
Hugh Robertson, the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, who leads on this policy area, has looked at the Select Committee findings and is broadly in agreement. It is for individual event holders to decide how to organise the sales of their tickets and how tickets are released on to the market. The Government would not want to interfere in what is, essentially, a commercial operation, and there are currently no plans to introduce legislation to do this. The Government has also made a commitment to reduce regulation and to introduce new regulation only as a last resort.
Legislation preventing the resale of Olympic and Paralympic tickets is a requirement of hosting the Games committed to as part of the host city contract with the IOC."