The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will ask
event organisers, promoters and ticket sales agencies to
collaborate on a new system which it hopes will stop fans of
sporting and cultural events paying high prices to touts.
But one of the biggest forums for after sales, eBay, has said
that the plan is impossible unless the Government is prepared to
force organisers to offer refunds on unwanted tickets.
The Government wants to stop the practice of unscrupulous
operators buying large numbers of tickets to in-demand events with
the sole purpose of selling them at a huge profit.
"Fans are the lifeblood of our sporting and entertainment
culture, and young fans keen to get to events are often the most
exploited," said DCMS minister Andy Burnham. "Event owners and
promoters need to work harder to ensure that real fans get tickets
at a fair price. The whole industry now needs to take action to
ensure that distribution is fair and effective."
"We have also seen a growth in the secondary market with tickets
block-booked by people whose sole aim is to sell on at a profit,"
said Burnham.
The Department wants industry to manage a list of events whose
significance to the cultural or sporting life of the nation is such
that the selling on of tickets at a profit should be banned
altogether.
But eBay has said that such a list will only work if fans are
allowed to get money back on unwanted tickets through official
channels.
"If the Government are not going to insist that event promoters
guarantee refunds beyond cancellation rights, why should fans be
prevented from reselling spare tickets just because they can no
longer go, or their team is knocked out?" said eBay in a
statement.
Though Burnham said that the list will operate on a voluntary
basis, the Department did threaten to use the law to force the
issue if industry did not create a viable voluntary scheme.
"The Government has consistently said that legislation is a last
resort, and this remains the case," said a DCMS statement.
The Department was responding to a Parliamentary Select
Committee report into the issue.
EBay said that a previous Parliamentary report had rejected the
proposals, though. "We are also sceptical about whether these
proposals are workable, and note that the idea of a list of
protected events has already been rejected by an all-party
Committee of MPs on the basis that it would simply add to confusion
for consumers."
"The trouble with bans or price caps is that they don’t work and
can be counter-productive," said the company's statement. "They end
up either driving the trade on to other parts of the internet - or
even worse, on to street corners where there is no consumer
protection if things go wrong."
"The real issue here is that up to a third of tickets for major
sporting events being allocated to VIPs and corporate
bigwigs. If the Government wants to promote access to
sporting events, it should regulate this rather than consumers
selling tickets on eBay," said the statement.
The Government said that it opposed the secondary sale of
tickets to events designed to be free.
The DCMS said that it has secured agreement on this issue at
least from eBay, and that the auction site will not facilitate
sales of tickets for events which are meant to be free.
"The Government agrees with the Select Committee's conclusions
that the secondary sale of free tickets (such as those for
charitable events and events which receive public subsidy such as
the BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend) should be prevented," said a DCMS
statement. "The Government has already reached an agreement with
leading operators including eBay that sales of tickets for such
events will be prevented in the future."
The issue of secondary sales is a fraught one. Tickets for high
demand events can reach hundreds of pounds and many fans feel they
are being priced out of the market for seats at events.
In the music industry, album and single sales and revenue are
falling around the world, while revenue from concert tickets is
soaring because of both increased live activity and higher prices.
Many people oppose controls on after-sales of tickets because they
believe the music industry is using the issue to exert greater
control over ticket sales to compensate for falling recordings
revenue.
Bans on ticket after sales already exist for football matches to
avoid fans from opposing teams sitting together, and for the
Olympic Games.
