Proposed new laws for ticket touts

KevIRL

Its about time too..


Touts to be outed

New legislation will see ticket touts prosecuted and their dodgy deals made impossible.

Paying twice the price to see your favourite band might soon be a thing of the past. Fine Gael T.D. Jimmy Deenihan is to revive his private member ‘New Prohibition of Ticket Touts Bill’, which calls for the confiscation of tickets; fines of up to €3,000 and/or six months in jail; and a ban on magazines like Buy & Sell advertising tickets for above face value.

The legislation is likely to get the support of Brian Cowen who, asked by Hot Press whether touting should be looked at, says: “Absolutely. I mean, I never met a ticket tout who’d give you a discount! But joking aside, the whole question about how some certain people get access to a lot of tickets for major events and use it as a means of gazumping people is wrong. There must be a system to stamp out all of that stuff.”

garthv

Where did you hear this?

KevIRL

garthv wrote: »

Where did you hear this?

Hotpress.com

garthv

Mr.S wrote: »

Not that i agree with touts buying up all the tickets when they are released, but they ARE handy when the gig etc is sold out, this means its just going to be harder to come by tickets once their sold out.

I for one, dont mind paying double face value if the gig is sold out and i want to go.

Its talk like this that keeps the touts in business. If there wasnt a load of touts snapping up the tickets then you wouldn't have to go to them in the first place.

KevIRL

garthv wrote: »

Its talk like this that keeps the touts in business. If there wasnt a load of touts snapping up the tickets then you wouldn't have to go to them in the first place.

+1 well said Garth

mattfender

Whats this chap gonna do now eh?

Lady

garthv wrote: »

Its talk like this that keeps the touts in business. If there wasnt a load of touts snapping up the tickets then you wouldn't have to go to them in the first place.

haha +1
:rolleyes:

Toast

mattfender wrote: »

Whats this chap gonna do now eh?

Has anyone seen him recently selling tickets? Ive seen him hanging around D6 looking the worse for wear.


This legislation has come up before and it got nowhere so hoping this time it will have more luck. Any reporters want us to say anything about this we'd be happy to setup an interview.

John

mattfender wrote: »

Whats this chap gonna do now eh?

I undercut him once, had a ticket to unload and sold it for just below face value to a girl who was going to pay double to him. Wouldn't risk it with another tout though as I am only fast enough to run from a one legged man!

KevIRL

Mr.S wrote: »

Nah thats not true.

a gig will sell out if its popular, with or without the touts, where will i go if on the night, if i decide i want to go to this gig, but its sold out? online places are very limited...toutless is a good idea, but whats stopping touts buying thoes tickets and just selling them on the night outisde the gig?

at the end of the day - if your a fan who wants to go to a certain gig, your going to get the tickets when they go on sale, if your just a casual punter who on the night decides oh that might be fun, ill head to it - then you go to a tout, if your willing to pay extra then thats your own choice, and i don't have a problem with it.

Whats stopping the touts selling them on outside the gig? This new law would aim to do that. Giving the Guards the ability to arrest the touts and confiscate tickets.

One of the reasons certain gigs sell out so quickly is touts buying up tickets for resale. These new laws should help stop this

Toast

We've a few ways of finding touts who use toutless the simplest being that we ask people to mark the tickets they sell so if someone buys it off a tout they'll see the site address and be likely to report it to us. I dont really want to go into the details of the others here as it makes them less effective if people know what we are looking for.

I think your neglecting the fact that there is always people with spare tickets outside and most who just want to get a buyer. If theres touts there they go to them and make a loss on the tickets and the touts sell it on to someone else for a profit. If theres no tout there they can sell it face value to a fan. So explain to me why in your theoretical situation is the tout neccesary?

lordgoat

Mr.S wrote: »

Nah thats not true.

a gig will sell out if its popular, with or without the touts, where will i go if on the night, if i decide i want to go to this gig, but its sold out? online places are very limited...toutless is a good idea, but whats stopping touts buying thoes tickets and just selling them on the night outisde the gig?

at the end of the day - if your a fan who wants to go to a certain gig, your going to get the tickets when they go on sale, if your just a casual punter who on the night decides oh that might be fun, ill head to it - then you go to a tout, if your willing to pay extra then thats your own choice, and i don't have a problem with it.

Can you not see that every ticket a tout buys takes it from someone that wants too see the band in question. Some gigs can't accomodate all the fans and it is at these ones in particular that genuine fans are hit hardest.

Also some people can barely afford to go to the gig in the first place. While you have the luxury of being able to afford unnecessarily inflatewd prices, others may not.

But it is this atypical Mé Fein attitude that has served this country so well, so why should people change now.

Miguel_Sanchez

Can't see any good that touts serve. I've bought tickets outside gigs but never for above cost and always from someone genuine who had extra that they needed to get rid of.

If you want to go along on the night of the gig and it happens to be sold out then it's just tough luck on you - I don't think touts should be allowed to make a killing off fans just because you want to go to a gig at the last minute and don't mind getting ripped off.

There's always the chance of getting returns at the box office.

indiewindy

KevIRL wrote: »

Its about time too..


Touts to be outed

New legislation will see ticket touts prosecuted and their dodgy deals made impossible.

Paying twice the price to see your favourite band might soon be a thing of the past. Fine Gael T.D. Jimmy Deenihan is to revive his private member ‘New Prohibition of Ticket Touts Bill’, which calls for the confiscation of tickets; fines of up to €3,000 and/or six months in jail; and a ban on magazines like Buy & Sell advertising tickets for above face value.

The legislation is likely to get the support of Brian Cowen who, asked by Hot Press whether touting should be looked at, says: “Absolutely. I mean, I never met a ticket tout who’d give you a discount! But joking aside, the whole question about how some certain people get access to a lot of tickets for major events and use it as a means of gazumping people is wrong. There must be a system to stamp out all of that stuff.”

Cheap political point scoring, its simple supply and demand, going by recent concerts touts are taking a pasting, with many tics going fro below face value. I cant understand the big fuss about touts, which is raised here every few months Shops arent forced to sell their goods and services at face value whats the difference with tickets

Potcher

If you really like a band you will camp outside the ticketmaster agent's door (local music shop whatever) to get a ticket. You will never be left without a ticket. Anyone who supports touts are as bad as them. Peopleneed to stop giving these scum encouragement.

honru

I don't find the idea of reselling tickets over face value quite integrous (and I wouldn't do it myself) but people can do what they want. Except on boards. :pac:

The touts themselves provide a pretty good service, though some of them can be quite scurvy-looking. I only turn to their dealings when they need to offload excess tickets and I've gotten a good few cheaper tickets that way.

John

Mr.S wrote: »

lets face it, if someone can make money on a ticket, there not going to give it away at face value, they'll stick it up on eBay or whatever and make a few quid. Of course you have the honnest guinuine people who will glady give tickets away for facevalue/below - but their not easy to come by.

They're certainly not hard to come by as I've never had to go to a tout in my life. **** them.

rubadub

Toast wrote: »

I think your neglecting the fact that there is always people with spare tickets outside and most who just want to get a buyer. If theres touts there they go to them and make a loss on the tickets and the touts sell it on to someone else for a profit. If theres no tout there they can sell it face value to a fan. So explain to me why in your theoretical situation is the tout neccesary?

The venue should offer some sort of service. Many people would be shy or concerned at getting ripped off. e.g. I could not imagine my mother outside screaming "anyone buying tickets", and a young girl with tickets worth €100+ each is a worrying thought.

At the olympia I have stood inside the box office before, feels a lot safer. I did it infront of bouncers, the bouncers confirmed to the buyer it was OK. I have heard of people giving tickets to the box office and coming back later to get money.

www.tickets.ie used to sell at €1 below face, and now at face and obviously still making a decent profit to be still in business. Ticketmaster will charge almost €7 extra, above and beyond what a small company can do. What does all that money go towards? the least they could do is offer some method of ticket resale service.

Touts could still buy up tickets if they were able to return them, so limits need to be on tickets. Max purchase of 2-4, and only so many possible returns as a % of tickets bought, at one time or over the course of a year or something. e.g. I buy tickets for 5 gigs, questions should be raised if I want to return tickets for 3 gigs.

You should be able to return tickets online or via the phone, then ticketmaster should be forced to offer these again, if they do not sell then you lose out.

Toast

Mr.S wrote: »

That said, toutless.ie is a good site, but its hardly thriving with tickets, and lets face it, if someone can make money on a ticket, there not going to give it away at face value, they'll stick it up on eBay or whatever and make a few quid. Of course you have the honnest guinuine people who will glady give tickets away for facevalue/below - but their not easy to come by.

What we've actually seen is theres been an excess of tickets for practically all the major "sold out" events this summer on the site. We've had to advertise for buyers rather than sellers.

Thats whats making your statements really frustrating to us because its an old way of thinking. You seem to think you should have the right to be allowed pay more to guarantee yourself a ticket at the expense of everyone else.

However I think the reality, and I back this up with what Ive seen modding on toutless, is that theres a lot more tickets for "sold out" events than we've been lead to believe and up until now theres been a lot of people whove went to a lot of effort to make people believe that they should be expecting to pay over the odds to get their hands on tickets for gigs. I see no actual need for this or a need for your right to do this. You'll still get your last minute tickets except you'll get them at the face value.

Touts dont manafacture new tickets they are just letting the richest person win them and that richest person is not neccesarily you so as far as I can see you are fighting for the right to be ripped off and still not neccesarily have the security you believe comes with that right.

lordgoat

Great post toast, +1.

grumpytrousers

Toast wrote: »

What we've actually seen is theres been an excess of tickets for practically all the major "sold out" events this summer on the site. We've had to advertise for buyers rather than sellers..

What's quite funny is that i suspect a lot more people are becoming potential mini-touts; they see a gig is coming up and decide that either

a) I'll go to the gig with my plus one, and buy 2 more. the 2 more will be sold at a profit and either reduce or eliminate the cost of my own and the plus one
b) This will surely sell out, I'll buy 4 and try to flog them all at a healthy profit

Tie this in with the fact that there's discernably less money around and plenty of big name acts still have tickets available and you can see why the 'minitouts' were all flocking to toutless. The gigs weren't selling out, the 'extra' tickets were as good as worth less than face value and they wanted to cut their losses.

No sympathy for them, and more power to toutless for giving them a platform. I don't mind a tout of any colour being reduced to selling below cost:D

magicbastarder

was this law passed?

Toast

I don't believe it got past the idea stage this time around as the internet is where most of the touting is done these days. Its been presented as a bill in the past but shot down due to the logistics of it.

Mossy Monk

The sooner touts are wiped off the face of the earth then the better

garthv

Mossy Monk wrote: »

The sooner touts are wiped off the face of the earth then the better

Easier said than done my friend....

rubadub

Toast wrote: »

the internet is where most of the touting is done these days.

Yep, including "fanclubs" with presale tickets, just another form of touting. I also consider ticketmasters ridiculous fees for CC to be a form of touting. I buy tickets online just for gigs I think will sell out.

Like I said earlier in this thread tickets.ie can obviously make a reasonable profit selling at €6-7 LESS than ticketmaster, and being a smaller operation I bet ticketmaster would be making more than them if they sold at that price.

Mossy Monk

garthv wrote: »

Easier said than done my friend....

Sadly you are right.

ceegee

There are many ways to cut down on touting without having to introduce legislation.

For big concerts/festivals the photo on ticket method used at a certain English festival works quite well, makes it pretty much impossible to sell on and gives you a nice personalised souvenir for afterwards. Wouldnt be suitable in all cases though.

Having said that Ive never fully understood the hatred people have for touts when supply/demand pricing is accepted nearly everywhere else in our culture.
What is the difference between a tout who sells tickets to a concert for twice face value and someone who sells a rare demo by that band on ebay for ten times its value?
The tout is accused of stopping genuine fans from getting a ticket but the person selling the cd is doing the same thing.

Its something I can never really decide my position on, but surely passing laws will cut on the person stuck with a spare ticket when there friend doesnt show up just as much as the guy trying to make a quick buck on twenty tickets

Mossy Monk

ceegee wrote: »

will cut on the person stuck with a spare ticket when there friend doesnt show up

They could sell the ticket on at face value?

ceegee

Mossy Monk wrote: »

They could sell the ticket on at face value?

I was going on the presumption that any law introduced would ban unauthorised re-selling, as opposed to re-selling above facevalue, would be far more difficult to enforce the latter i'd have thought

Toast

ceegee wrote: »

Having said that Ive never fully understood the hatred people have for touts when supply/demand pricing is accepted nearly everywhere else in our culture.
What is the difference between a tout who sells tickets to a concert for twice face value and someone who sells a rare demo by that band on ebay for ten times its value?
The tout is accused of stopping genuine fans from getting a ticket but the person selling the cd is doing the same thing.

First off the law that was proposed allowed for face value reselling as well as charity auctions.

I've addressed your other point a good few times on this board. Collectors items need to be mantained and stored for many many years to be worth anything. It requires a large amount of time and effort from someone who will no doubt end up with 45 other useless demos for every one that ends up being sold. Theres a huge amount of time and effort and ultimately by preserving a piece of history for someone who is interested in it they've performed a great service.

Touts do not perform a useful function. They do not manufacture extra tickets but actively buy up tickets to falsely skew the market demand to increase their profits. This is an immoral practice at best and usually illegal in other markets that supply/demand is in action. If it was done with an essential service there would be an uproar... that tickets are entertainment means that it isn't really a priority to sort but its still considered enough of an issue that it has been brought to the dail on a couple of occasions now.

Ultimately... yes it is the logical conclusion of supply/demand but regulation and mortality are also elements of modern day business that when you remove you end up with global economic meltdowns and the like.

lordgoat

[QUOTE=Toast;
Touts do not perform a useful function. They do not manufacture extra tickets but actively buy up tickets to falsely skew the market demand to increase their profits. This is an immoral practice at best and usually illegal in other markets that supply/demand is in action. If it was done with an essential service there would be an uproar... that tickets are entertainment means that it isn't really a priority to sort but its still considered enough of an issue that it has been brought to the dail on a couple of occasions now.

Ultimately... yes it is the logical conclusion of supply/demand but regulation and mortality are also elements of modern day business that when you remove you end up with global economic meltdowns and the like. [/QUOTE]

+1.

Toast you should put this on a pamphlet or leaflet and get people to sign up to it.

Well said

ceegee

Toast wrote: »

Ultimately... yes it is the logical conclusion of supply/demand but regulation and mortality are also elements of modern day business that when you remove you end up with global economic meltdowns and the like.

Gotta agree with you there, nothing like a bunch of immortals to feck up the economy

As for the rest of your post, I can understand where you're coming from and to a certain extent i agree with you. I guess it comes down to whether you see a concert ticket as an asset for lack of a better word. If the market value of that "asset" goes up (due to scarcity) is there anything wrong with assigning a higher value to it when selling it on? If you leave the emotional connection we all have with our favourite music it makes sense to do what touts do. And IMO no one really suffers from what touts do in a real sense, you may not get to see a band but its hardly equivalent to someone holding the town water supply to ransom.

The only other thing i'd say in the touts defense (please dont hurt me ) is that they do take risks when buying these tickets and if a gig doesnt sell as well as they expected they take a hit, and this leaves an oppurtunity for the cash-strapped fan to see a band they may not have been able to see due to the high ticket cost set by the band. Without touts overestimating demand for tickets Im sure there'd have been several gigs cancelled over the last few years due to poor ticket sales.

Toast

Ah drat. I'm always so careful not to make those sort of typos... I'd just woken up!

Anyway yes my own sense of MORALITY prevents me from making any serious parallels between touting and the sort of people who'd control an essential service like water. It is ultimately entertainment and any argument is going to have to take into account that people could just do without but striving for a system that works better for something that is non essential is still a noble goal. We can't ignore something that doesn't work just because we don't require it to live.

You have argued touts have provided financial backing for events that haven't sold and haven't caused suffering. I'd agree that is certainly true suffering isn't something that happens often as a result of touts but it is possible that difficult and probably irrational decisions have been made by people under the pressure of touts. Sports tickets are going to fall under this more than music as people see them as historical events.. once in a lifetime scenarios. The obvious one being Wales V Ireland. I would guess there was at least a few people who got loans they may not have been able to afford to pay tout prices for tickets to this. This is conjecture and I'll get to that in a second.

On top of this I'd argue people who have had to pay extra for events they REALLY wanted to go to because of touts may not have been able to afford to get tickets legitimately for other events they weren't as dedicated to as a result. I'd stick people who occasionaly got to go to something because the tickets were sold cheaper because of touts into that same pile there. If events are overpriced and succeeding because of touts maybe they would have been better off failing without touts and being repriced accordingly. You are presuming events may have been saved by touts but I'd presume that events could easily have failed because of touts or events are now overpriced because of touts.

Theres no real way of saying if either circumstance has occurred beyond gut feeling and assumption as its not something thats recorded but we've to make our judgements on what we perceive to be the truth with our own perceptions. As such rather than claim I know better I'd let people judge based on their own observations what they feel is a more likely scenario to be occuring.

g5fd6ow0hseima

Mr.S wrote: »

I for one, dont mind paying double face value if the gig is sold out and i want to go.

Grand and all if you have that dispsable cash. Also, itll put more of an onus on people to get their tickets when they go onsale. That would be a measure of how much they want to go to the gig.

rubadub

ceegee wrote: »

What is the difference between a tout who sells tickets to a concert for twice face value and someone who sells a rare demo by that band on ebay for ten times its value?

Some bands are setting up toutfanclubs. A newer thing I see is bands releasing limited edition cds which blatantly are touted as going to go up in value. If people snap up these upon release with the intention of selling on the next day on ebay then I view them in the same way as touts. As Toast explained many are very different from that.

ceegee wrote: »

Its something I can never really decide my position on, but surely passing laws will cut on the person stuck with a spare ticket when there friend doesnt show up just as much as the guy trying to make a quick buck on twenty tickets

As I said before we are paying ticketmaster a fortune in additional fees, and get very little service for them, they should at least offer a form of sell back service.

ceegee wrote: »

If the market value of that "asset" goes up (due to scarcity) is there anything wrong with assigning a higher value to it when selling it on? If you leave the emotional connection we all have with our favourite music it makes sense to do what touts do. And IMO no one really suffers from what touts do in a real sense, you may not get to see a band but its hardly equivalent to someone holding the town water supply to ransom.

It is more equivalent to lads buying up all the easter eggs, or the all latest christmas toys they can, and then selling it back to parents at a extortionate price.
I do see where you are coming from though. There was a big unmentionable gig on last night, my mate was meant to be still on holidays but came back a day early to see it. He was going to sell it to another mate, and then saw they were going for up to €300 on ebay, it is hard to turn down, esp. if you are not that big a fan. It is in effect like somebody saying "I will pay you €250 not to go to the gig". But you are preying on desperation too, like selling a soldout DS to a father to keep his kid happy on xmas morning.

First off the law that was proposed allowed for face value reselling as well as charity auctions.

Yes, ticketmaster will already tell you that you are free to sell on your tickets at face value.

RAMAN

The bottom line is popular gigs will sell out and if your a big fan it's a hard pill to swallow. But none the less touts are bottom feeders in my book so hope this law does come into effect.

BrianD

rubadub wrote: »

As I said before we are paying ticketmaster a fortune in additional fees, and get very little service for them, they should at least offer a form of sell back service.

I simply don't agree. Ticketmaster provide a first rate service to both the punter and the promoter. You may complain about the price but they provide a high quality service. Trawl these boards or ask your friends but it is rare to see a complaint about their service levels. Pricing yes, service no.

TM do not offer a sell back service because their supply side clients, the promoters, don't. The concert promotion business would end tomorrow if any form of 'sell back service' was offered. The promotion business is a risk business and you are buying into the 'risk' at a fixed price set by the artist/promoter. That's a pretty fair deal.

Caco

mattfender wrote: »

Whats this chap gonna do now eh?

He gave me a free ticket to Gary Numan a while back :pac:

BrianD wrote: »

TM do not offer a sell back service because their supply side clients, the promoters, don't. The concert promotion business would end tomorrow if any form of 'sell back service' was offered. The promotion business is a risk business and you are buying into the 'risk' at a fixed price set by the artist/promoter. That's a pretty fair deal.

It might work if (as mentioned earlier) you give in your spare ticket at the door and collect the money afterwards if the ticket was sold. Though this would probably cause hordes of fans who couldn't get tickets queueing up outside the venue in the off-chance they'll get to purchase a sell back ticket.

IMO this legislation would seem like a good idea as long as fans who have a spare ticket are not arrested for trying to sell it at face value to another fan (as Rubadub explained above) which basically cuts out the middle man- the tout. Although this probably still won't solve the problem of "mini-touts"