Government backs legislation on ticket touting

Electric Nitwit

Thought this was relevant to people here, hopefully it goes through

https://www.rte.ie/amp/980816/

The Government has agreed on legislative measures to tackle ticket touting.

Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Heather Humphreys said the proposed legislation would ban the above-face value resale of tickets for sporting and entertainment events in designated venues with a capacity of 1,000 or more.

It would also prohibit the use of bot software to purchase tickets in excess of the number permitted by event organisers.

The legislation would also give effect to the commitment given to UEFA (the Union of European Football Associations) to ban the unauthorised transfer and use of tickets for matches and official events taking place in Ireland during the Euro 2020 Championship.

In order to implement these measures, the Government has said it will support and amend the Prohibition of Above-Cost Ticket Touting Bill introduced by deputies Noel Rock and Stephen Donnelly.

Minister Humphreys said: "It’s wrong that people who make no contribution to sport or music can profit from the resale of tickets for sell-out matches and shows. In doing so, they deprive genuine fans of the opportunity to attend these events, and the time has come to put a stop to it.

"I am confident that this bill will have the support of the main sporting bodies, of many artists and promoters in the entertainment industry, and of music and sports fans right across the country.

"It is also a tangible example of new politics at work and in that regard I want to acknowledge the efforts of deputies Noel Rock and Stephen Donnelly, who have engaged constructively on this matter so we can bring forward workable proposals which will benefit genuine fans. I look forward to continuing to work with both deputies and our Oireachtas colleagues in progressing this bill."

The Government’s decision has been welcomed by Mr Rock and Mr Donnelly

phunkadelic

This will just mean TM will do more of the sneaky tactics.
They will lose money from seatwave profits etc, so to make up for it they will have more allocated to expensive categories, VIP etc, initially. (Eg gold circle for Rolling stones).
Then they will release the unsold ones as standard tickets a few months later.

The Nal

the proposed legislation would ban the above-face value resale of tickets for sporting and entertainment events in designated venues with a capacity of 1,000 or more.

Hows that going to work? No seatwave etc?

jack presley

Will there be anything to stop Seatwave etc from just selling the tickets from their UK site or some other offshore place?

ghostdancer

phunkadelic wrote: »

This will just mean TM will do more of the sneaky tactics.
They will lose money from seatwave profits etc, so to make up for it they will have more allocated to expensive categories, VIP etc, initially. (Eg gold circle for Rolling stones).
Then they will release the unsold ones as standard tickets a few months later.

that's down to the promoter, not really ticketmaster.

Zardoz

jack presley wrote: »

Will there be anything to stop Seatwave etc from just selling the tickets from their UK site or some other offshore place?

That is exactly what they and Viagogo will do,Viagogo are by far the biggest player in this country.
They only need to move to Northern Ireland .

In some ways this might actually be good for Ticketmaster as phunkadelic says .
If other sites are not reselling tickets then Ticketmaster will have a monopoly to sell their platinum and VIP tickets.
This is something they have been transitioning to over the last few months.

The recent Paul McCartney UK tour sold out in seconds but there are platinum tickets up on Ticketmaster at ludicrous prices and the Ticketmaster owned resale sites Seatwave and Getmein are not listing tickets to drive these Platinum sales.
Ticketmaster are drip feeding Platinum tickets to keep the prices high.

Ticketmaster have a monopoly in this country selling tickets so they can manipulate supply and demand for events ,they already do it but with this new law they will do it even more.
Ticketmaster want to become the biggest tout of all and this law will achieve that ,it strengthens their monopoly even more.

rubadub

The Nal wrote: »

the proposed legislation would ban the above-face value resale of tickets for sporting and entertainment events in designated venues with a capacity of 1,000 or more.

Hows that going to work? No seatwave etc?

seatwave are still allow to operate. TM seem to market seatwave as a resale site, supposedly to sort out customers stuck with tickets, now we all know its a tout site but they are not going to come out and say it. Plenty of tickets are sold below cost on it, and seatwave will still get big profit on those.

jack presley wrote: »

Will there be anything to stop Seatwave etc from just selling the tickets from their UK site or some other offshore place?

Belgium already have legistlation in place, and I think seatwave shut down there. If there are ways around it then I would search to see what is happening in Belgium.

I was surprised to see they did shut it down in Belgium, indirectly admitting it is a touting site.

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/cabinet-backs-ticket-touting-ban-law-857562.html

While welcoming legislation around the use of some software, an online secondhand ticket-selling company said it believes the law banning resales over face value will drive the trade underground.

In response to the legislation, StubHub said it believes “legislation to regulate the selling price of tickets bears the risk of driving ticket sellers away from sites that offer the buyer a safe transaction”.

People can still safely buy tickets online at face value or below. If there are not automated bots and causal armchair touts snapping up tickets then people will have a far better chance of buying them in the first place.

If it is turned "underground" then it makes it far more unattractive to potential touts. I doubt many "street touts" are buying online, they seem to be just brokers for tickets, arrive up to a place and see what the going rate is there and then. Others will find it more difficult to advertise online etc.

Mrcaramelchoc

jack presley wrote: »

Will there be anything to stop Seatwave etc from just selling the tickets from their UK site or some other offshore place?

Well if this is successful hopefully the uk will follow it up by doing it to.

MadYaker

I think we need more details on the wording of the legislation before we’ll know how effective it’s going to be.

rubadub

MadYaker wrote: »

I think we need more details on the wording of the legislation before we’ll know how effective it’s going to be.

said it was based on the Belgium one.

Found the proposal here

Prohibition of Above-cost Ticket Touting Bill 2017
https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/bill/2017/9/eng/initiated/b917d.pdf

MadYaker

Based on that it sounds as if most ticket reselling sites would be gone? People aren’t going to use seatwave if the max price they can put their EP ticket up for is €240 or whatever and then they only get €230 once seatwave get their slice. Everyone would just use donedeal or toutless or whatever instead. And presumably adverts and donedeal would be obliged to remove listings where tickets are being sold at above cost price? Sounds good to me.

rubadub

MadYaker wrote: »

People aren’t going to use seatwave if the max price they can put their EP ticket up for is €240 or whatever and then they only get €230 once seatwave get their slice. Everyone would just use donedeal or toutless or whatever instead.

donedeal and toutless have no insurance with them. Many people do not know they are stuck with tickets until someone pulls out last minute. Others might live very remotely and not easily meet up to handover or buy tickets.

Plenty of people are selling tickets below face on seatwave, so there is definitely still a use for it. Though as I said before I heard it did close in Belgium.

phunkadelic

ghostdancer wrote: »

that's down to the promoter, not really ticketmaster.

Might be true, but the largest promoter in Ireland (MCD), is in with Ticketmaster/Live Nation in a big, big way.
They jointly own Festival Republic. And Denis Desmond of MCD is chairman of Live Nation UK and Ireland.

judeboy101

Unless ticketing companies say it in their terms and conditions, I cant see how this will stand up up a challenge. Here's an example of a ticket sold for more than its face value

https://m.ebay.ie/itm/1969-Woodstock-Ticket-8-16-69-Grateful-Dead-Janis-Joplin-CCR-PSA-GEM-MT-10/253648260850?hash=item3b0e9d4ef2%3Ag%3AWEwAAOSwPDdbCMH2&_nkw=ticket+woodstock&_from=R40&rt=nc&_trksid=m4084.l1313

Zardoz

rubadub wrote: »

If there are not automated bots and causal armchair touts snapping up tickets then people will have a far better chance of buying them in the first place.

You dont believe that bot myth do you ?
If there were bots buying tickets in bulk the numbers on the resale sites would be far higher than they currently are ,its usually only 1-2% of a venue ,compared to 20% in the US where bots are rife.

There is almost hardly any evidence to suggest that bots are buying tickets for Irish events unless you believe what this so called expert (the less said about him the better ) says
https://www.rte.ie/news/2017/0723/892408-ticket-touting/
https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/dublin-based-mob-behind-ticket-13374679
https://extra.ie/2017/07/24/news/irish-news/online-gangs-irish-ticket-touting

People seem to believe a myth that these bots are buying up all the tickets but the Irish resale market is tiny compared to other countries .

Putting this 1-2 percent back into circulation would make no difference for big events like U2 in the 3arena or Croke Park or Ireland vs England in rugby etc.
We'd still here people roaring their heads off on social media that they cant get a ticket ,so who will they blame this time ??

cruizer101

I know I am probably in the minority but I disagree with it.
I don't think the government should control pricing of discretionary items like this on the free market.

Lets say Adele put on a concert with tickets at 100 euro with 10,000 capacity, there are far more than 10,000 people who are willing to pay that much. So what in effect happens is there is a lottery in which a small portion of the people who want to go win the prize which is the ability to buy a ticket for 100 euro.
Now lets say I personally value going to an Adele concert at 200 euro but I don't win this effective ticket lottery, why should I be denied the right to pay the 200 euro that I think it is worth to go to the concert. At the end of the day the fairest way to allocate tickets is to let people pay what they want for them and let those who value them the most get them.
So will argue what about the die hard fans who are outpriced, sorry but thats life a die hard fan can put away 4 euro a week for a year to save up if that is what they really want. I really want to own a ferrari but I accept I can't unless I make sacrifices elsewhere.

Now lets say an artist produces 10 copies of one of his paintings, he sells them of at 100 euro to the first 10 people. One of those people decides to sell it on and gets 200 euro, should he not be allowed do that because that is effectively what the proposed legislation is doing, just in a different market.


There is a problem with ticket pricing but it is just that ticket prices are not being set correctly by the ticket sellers. It could be solved overnight if they set the prices correctly for the market. but they don't want to as the true market price for some could run into hundreds, at the end of the day the supply is limited nothing can be done about that.
Personally I think it is a dangerous precedent putting legislation in place to control the price of something that should be controlled by the free market.

rubadub

Zardoz wrote: »

You dont believe that bot myth do you ?

I believe they exist, and seems you do too...

I gave no figures at all...

Mr.S

This is good, but without hearing the finer details it's hard to say much else - a few things in my head:

How would this be realistically 'enforced'?, Great if it stops the likes of Seatwave, Viagogo etc from operating in Ireland, or at the very least stop them for selling overpriced tickets. (i'm sure they will find a way around the legalisation if passed) but I can't imagine much can be done to stop the local Irish touts, or regular punter who just wants to sell a ticket on at a profit.

Bots - can safely say I have never heard of any touts doing this in Ireland, they use pre-paid debit cards and/or buy tickets in person in large batches. Ticketmaster already has anti-bot measures in place, do they not?

Also bit odd they are only applying it to venues of 1,000 people +. Why not all events?

Zardoz

cruizer101 wrote: »

There is a problem with ticket pricing but it is just that ticket prices are not being set correctly by the ticket sellers. It could be solved overnight if they set the prices correctly for the market. but they don't want to as the true market price for some could run into hundreds, at the end of the day the supply is limited nothing can be done about that.
Personally I think it is a dangerous precedent putting legislation in place to control the price of something that should be controlled by the free market.

We are moving towards that sort of a pricing scheme ,its already in place in the US for certain gigs and the Rolling Stones use it ,dynamic pricing .

The artist will sell tickets at a price they believe the market will bear and this price changes over time .
Alot of artists are against this as they dont want to be seen to be charging big bucks to their fans ,it looks bad ,so they will price the tickets at a more modest level.
They will then put a section of tickets on the secondary market or/and have VIP/Platinum tickets to cater for the richer fan.

Good video on it here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f2uvThS3Xw

MadYaker

cruizer101 wrote: »

I know I am probably in the minority but I disagree with it.
I don't think the government should control pricing of discretionary items like this on the free market.

Lets say Adele put on a concert with tickets at 100 euro with 10,000 capacity, there are far more than 10,000 people who are willing to pay that much. So what in effect happens is there is a lottery in which a small portion of the people who want to go win the prize which is the ability to buy a ticket for 100 euro.
Now lets say I personally value going to an Adele concert at 200 euro but I don't win this effective ticket lottery, why should I be denied the right to pay the 200 euro that I think it is worth to go to the concert. At the end of the day the fairest way to allocate tickets is to let people pay what they want for them and let those who value them the most get them.
So will argue what about the die hard fans who are outpriced, sorry but thats life a die hard fan can put away 4 euro a week for a year to save up if that is what they really want. I really want to own a ferrari but I accept I can't unless I make sacrifices elsewhere.

Now lets say an artist produces 10 copies of one of his paintings, he sells them of at 100 euro to the first 10 people. One of those people decides to sell it on and gets 200 euro, should he not be allowed do that because that is effectively what the proposed legislation is doing, just in a different market.


There is a problem with ticket pricing but it is just that ticket prices are not being set correctly by the ticket sellers. It could be solved overnight if they set the prices correctly for the market. but they don't want to as the true market price for some could run into hundreds, at the end of the day the supply is limited nothing can be done about that.
Personally I think it is a dangerous precedent putting legislation in place to control the price of something that should be controlled by the free market.

I agree to a certain extent but there’s a balance to be struck between allowing a free market and preventing companies like Ticketmaster and seatwave abusing their position in the market. Although I haven’t seen proof of it I (and many others) have suspected for sometime that Ticketmaster are using a third party to buy tickets from themselves for high demand events and then reselling these tickets for an increased price on their own site seatwave. Even if this isn’t happening there are loads of people buying tickets they’ve no intention of using just to sell them on at a profit and that’s a problem.

I agree with allowing a free market in theory but in reality a truely free market doesn’t exist anywhere and I don’t see why gig tickets should be any different. From your post it seems you’d be in favor of massively increasing ticket prices for high demand events so they match the market value. I’m not in favor of that all. Would you like to pay €300 - €400 for an electric picnic ticket? Tickets for big names that sell out the 3 arena or Croke Park in seconds would probably go for hundreds of euro which would make gigs inaccessible to most people. A ticket for Glastonbury or some other exclusive event like that would cost thousands.

I don’t think this legislation sets a precedent, all markets are regulated in some way.

rubadub

Mr.S wrote: »

I can't imagine much can be done to stop the local Irish touts, or regular punter who just wants to sell a ticket on at a profit.

I think it would hugely put off the "armchair touts" who want to be able to do it all online, safely, no issue of fake notes or counterfeit/duplicate tickets, no travelling to meet people etc.

You see stupidly high limits on tickets, people get in for say U2 and end up buying the max limit knowing fine well they can get rid of them to friends or else sell on at a profit.

Wheety

It's been said already but tickets will still be sold for way over face value but now it'll just be Ticketmaster. At least the promoters and artist should get a cut.

A large proportion of tickets will be VIP/Premium and if not selling will make their way into the general tickets allocation.

Mr.S

rubadub wrote: »

I think it would hugely put off the "armchair touts" who want to be able to do it all online, safely, no issue of fake notes or counterfeit/duplicate tickets, no travelling to meet people etc.

You see stupidly high limits on tickets, people get in for say U2 and end up buying the max limit knowing fine well they can get rid of them to friends or else sell on at a profit.

Armchair touts

But lets say they still put up a ticket to X sold out concert online - I can't see much being done to remove listings, especially on the likes of Facebook / Twitter - how can it? eBay, DoneDeal etc can change their policies, but 'armchair' touts will easily get around that.

I still think promoters / venues need get involved if we really want to reduce ticket touting.

Mongfinder General

So if the government cap the price that a ticket can be sold at surely it can do the same for a house?

Zardoz

Mongfinder General wrote: »

So if the government cap the price that a ticket can be sold at surely it can do the same for a house?

Well most TD's are landlords so you wont see them taking any action on the price of houses or the price of rent for that matter.
This bill is merely a publicity stunt to try and win votes.

I'd prefer if they tried to regulate the price of insurance or solicitors fees instead .
Or bring the bankers that cost the country 100bn to justice ,but we know that isnt going to happen.

MadYaker

The government are not setting the price or capping it. The promoter sets the ticket price and the new legislation will prevent anyone selling second hand tickets at a higher price. Maybe ticket master will increase the prices significantly but the majority of people won’t pay hugely inflated prices.

rubadub

Mr.S wrote: »

but 'armchair' touts will easily get around that.

They cease to be armchair touts if they have to get off their arse! -and go to meet people or go to the post office with them. It is very easy for them to operate at the moment, most likely do not even consider themselves touts. People will be more reluctant to buy as there is fear of them being duds/fake/duplicates. As tickets are so pricey these days people are naturally more cautious, both buyer and seller, of the black market backstreet deals.

You will never get rid of the practice, but this proposal is definitely better than nothing and should make a noticeable difference. I have not heard if Belgiums laws have been widely circumvented.

laotg

Mongfinder General wrote:

So if the government cap the price that a ticket can be sold at surely it can do the same for a house


How would that work? You go to sell your house and the government tell you the max price you can sell it for? Now that would be fun.

cruizer101

MadYaker wrote: »

From your post it seems you’d be in favor of massively increasing ticket prices for high demand events so they match the market value. I’m not in favor of that all.

I'm not necessarily in favor of it but the market value is the market value

MadYaker wrote: »

Would you like to pay €300 - €400 for an electric picnic ticket?

I think Electric picnic tickets aren't far of that now, and tbh it wouldn't be effected too much as it doesn't sell out straight away

MadYaker wrote: »

Tickets for big names that sell out the 3 arena or Croke Park in seconds would probably go for hundreds of euro which would make gigs inaccessible to most people.

Whats the issue with that, they are by there very nature exclusive events, where demand far exceeds supply, they are in effect already inaccessible to most because if you are not randomly picked you can't go. If anything increasing price makes them more accessible, as those who want to pay, can.

Mongfinder General

laotg wrote: »

Mongfinder General wrote:

So if the government cap the price that a ticket can be sold at surely it can do the same for a house


How would that work? You go to sell your house and the government tell you the max price you can sell it for? Now that would be fun.

Yes, that’s it in a nut shell. The grubby little ticket tout you see on street corners is no diffferent to the homeowner flogging a 4 bed semi in the suburbs. Both are looking to squeeze as much out of the deal as possible

Zardoz

MadYaker wrote: »

I don’t think this legislation sets a precedent, all markets are regulated in some way.

There was a very detailed report carried out a few years ago by an Economics professor on behalf of the UK govt ,its a good read ,227 pages in total.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/consumer-protection-measures-applying-to-ticket-resale-waterson-review

The main points are here

http://www.musicweek.com/analysis/read/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-professor-waterson-s-secondary-ticketing-report/065000

A ban would be futile
Waterson rejected calls for an outright ban on secondary ticketing, insisting that would merely drive the market underground or offshore. He argued that the fact several primary operators have linked up with secondary agencies suggested their approval of such activities, adding that as a significant portion (thought to be 30%) of tickets were sold below face value, they offered a “useful service”.
A price cap is unworkable
Anti-touting campaigners have put forward arguments for a cap on resale prices, to be set at 10-20% above face value. But Waterson dismissed this prospect. “There is a question of who would enforce the cap and what resources they would employ,” he said. “Merely declaring there to be a cap is not sufficient. Price caps in Britain are most often enforced by dedicated, substantially staffed regulators dealing with a clear set of established companies subject to their regulation. My feeling is that such a body would only be merited in circumstances where very substantial and sustained evidence of [the potential for] market manipulation was present.

The Irish Govt seemed to be following in line with these recommendations up to last month but they seem to have done a U turn on what was advised to them by department officials.
You'd wonder what caused this U turn.
https://www.ticketnews.com/2018/06/ireland-government-questions-anti-touting-law/