“Money is being taken out of the music industry and put into the hands of people who never had the intention of supporting the bands or the fans in the first place.” – Josh Franceschi, lead singer of You Me At Six.
The secondary ticketing market in the UK is comparable to the North Korean government: corrupt, shady and run by individuals who couldn’t care less about the people. But whilst there isn’t much that can be done to change the mess that North Korea is in, there are ways of tackling the secondary ticketing market to make it exactly what it should always have been: ethical and trustworthy.
For those that don’t know, ticket touting is the act of reselling a previously bought ticket. The seller has the decision of where to sell it and how much for. Tickets can be sold in a variety of ways; one example is outside venues on show nights by so called ‘ticket touts’, who are trying to make a last minute profit on tickets. On the whole, however, the majority of tickets are resold on secondary ticketing sites. According to IQ magazine, the UK’s secondary ticket market is worth over £1bn. There are four major players in this sector: Get Me In, Viagogo, StubHub and Seatwave. These sites claim to operate as genuine platforms for fans to sell their tickets if they can no longer make an event, but sadly it isn’t quite as simple as that.
In short, the problem with secondary sites is that the majority of tickets are sold by professional ticket touts. They use so called ‘bots’, and/or employed staff, to bulk buy tickets on primary sites (eg. Ticketmaster, See Tickets, Gigs and Tours) to then resell for a profit. Essentially, fans are losing out. If tickets sell out for their favourite show before they’ve had a chance to buy one, they either have to settle with the fact they won’t be attending, or instead they are forced to pay highly inflated prices on secondary sites. Whilst many fans have accepted that this is the norm, this clearly should not be how the market is run.
Currently there are no laws or legislations in the UK that specifically ban the use of bots. There are elements within the Digital Economy Bill that prevent illegal online activity, but using bots to sweep up thousands of tickets currently isn’t classed as illegal. In New York, earlier this month, a bill was passed to ban the use of bots and computer software to bulk buy tickets. Lin-Manuel Mirana, creator of the Broadway hit musical Hamilton, poignantly wrote in the New York Times earlier this year: “You shouldn’t have to fight robots to see something you love.” It is a sentiment such as this which fully sums up why bots need to be banned.
The concept of banning bots, however, is easier said than done. Although there are often restrictions in place on how many tickets a person can buy, this doesn’t stop someone from using multiple credit cards and addresses, which is what professional touts do. Adam Webb, Campaign Manager at FanFair Alliance, says that: “Whilst it’s not illegal to sell a ticket on a secondary site, it’s certainly not legal to pretend you’re 17 different people with multiple credit cards.” It’s all well and good saying that it is illegal, but currently the law is not being enforced to clamp down on bulk buying.
Not all blame can be put on professional ticket touts though; secondary ticketing sites themselves have a lot to answer for. One of the things that is abundantly clear is the lack of transparency on these websites. In May 2015, an amendment to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 was introduced. Sharon Hodgson, the Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Ticket Abuse, says: “The biggest achievement of the cross-party campaign so far was the amendment to the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which introduced much needed transparency measures to the secondary ticketing market, which was to inform and empower fans on what tickets they were buying.” Ultimately, three main measures were put into place: 1) the seller must specify details of the ticket so buyers can identify where the seat is; 2) information about any restrictions must be shown i.e. whether under 18s must be accompanied by an adult; and 3) it must be shown whether the price the ticket is being sold at is face value or not. These regulations, however, are not being upheld. Annabella Coldrick, CEO of the Music Manager’s Forum, says: “In some instances when you look online, they occasionally put seat rows and number, but sellers don’t like doing it because they know that managers and promoters can have that ticket cancelled.” It is clear that one of the first, and most important, steps when looking ahead is ensuring that this law surrounding transparency is upheld. The system is currently being made a mockery of and if a law is introduced, it has been done for a reason, so should be properly maintained.
Another problem surrounding secondary ticket sites is power sellers. “They are touts who are set up as a special kind of volume seller,” Coldrick says. “They give the tout preferential terms, mainly paying them every six weeks or so rather than just after the show, which is what happens if you’re an ordinary person.” So whilst these sites claim to be fair and for genuine fan-to-fan ticket exchange, not only are they allowing professional ticket touts to use their sites, they are in fact giving them preferential treatment. To put it simply, these sites are just plainly corrupt.
It may come as a surprise to know that Live Nation, the company that owns the primary ticketing site Ticketmaster, also owns two secondary sites: Seatwave and GetMeIn. This on the surface may not seem like much of a problem, but ultimately, this is one of the murkiest areas in the secondary ticketing market. One problem is that Live Nation can use large marketing budgets on their secondary sites. Richard Davies, founder of Twickets, says: “The marketing they have tricks many into thinking they are a fair and fan friendly platform. In the case of Seatwave and GetMeIn, it gives them credibility through association with a primary ticketing concern such as Ticketmaster.” What’s more, the close relationship between Ticketmaster and secondary sites has led to questions about primary tickets being put directly on secondary’s. Annabella Coldrick says: “Live Nation would prefer it if you bought a ticket off their secondary sites rather than their primary sites because the fees they get on secondary’s are around £20-£30 per ticket compared to around £5 on Ticketmaster. It’s very immoral, even if it’s technically legal.” Whilst there isn’t necessarily anything that can be done about this, it’s worth keeping in mind the possible intentions of Live Nation on their secondary sites.
The problems caused by the secondary ticketing market are having substantial effects on many; the biggest of all, of course, being the fans. Josh Franceschi, lead singer of indie-rock band You Me At Six, has been campaigning heavily to stop fans being ripped off. He told the BBC: “Enough is enough. Genuine fans are being priced out of the equation. Music lovers are consumers too, and consumers have rights.” As with most things, a level of naivety comes with this. A huge number of fans do not realise that the secondary ticketing sites are not the primary place to buy tickets, however, this is not always their fault. “It is often the case where primary tickets are still available and yet search engines are directing you to the secondary sites,” says Coldrick. “This is because the secondary’s have paid for their websites to be higher up on search engine results.”
To help fans understand the treacherous world of ticket buying, a fan guide is currently being written by the FanFair Alliance, an organisation launched to inform fans, musicians and music industry professionals about the problems within the secondary ticketing market and to encourage them to campaign for change. Campaign Manager Adam Webb, who’s currently writing the guide, says: “What we’re trying to do is look at how fans can give themselves the best chance in the current market of actually buying a ticket. So it’s knowing what presales are, knowing who the primary ticketing sellers are and knowing who the secondary ones are. We’re also trying to educate fans that if it is a high demand show, there’s a really high likelihood that there’ll be extra shows and extra tickets released, so not to panic and rush to buy a costly ticket off a secondary site.” Although the guide will not eradicate the problem, it will help inform fans to put themselves in the best position to get tickets and hopefully deter them from using secondary sites. “If all fans stopped buying from secondary sites then touting would stop immediately,” says Coldrick, who has also had input into the fan guide. “If you take the money out of this business then the touts would go away.”
Musicians are aware of the negative effects of their tickets being sold for inflated prices. Colin Jones, drummer in indie-rock band Circa Waves, thinks it’s not fair on fans. “All of us in the band are live music fans ourselves and have been going to concerts for years. We know the feeling of trying to get tickets to see your favourite band but having no luck, yet you will go onto secondary sites and see tickets being put up instantly. It’s just horrible.” Bands are sometimes able to put restrictions in place when their tickets go on sale. “It all depends on your status as a band on what rules you can put in place,” says Jones. “Obviously you want your tickets on the major sites as they not only sell your tickets but they can promote your tour through their own network. The downside of course is that it also means that touts can then get your tickets.” Whilst it may be easy to push blame onto bands for not doing more, it is not always easy for them to introduce the restrictions that they would like.
It is blindingly obvious that the secondary ticketing market is littered with problems. Whilst it’s difficult to know where to begin when it comes to tackling the problem, there are some preventions already being implemented. In May this year, Michael Waterson, a professor at the University of Warwick, was appointed by the government to lead a review on the secondary ticketing market, researching the problems with the marketplace and suggesting solutions to help tackle them. Whilst some of them were already being implemented before the review, a substantial increase in preventative measures has been seen since the review was published.
One of the suggestions by Waterson was that if fans did decide to resort to secondary ticketing sites, they should use fair and ethical ones. In November 2011, Richard Davies set up Twickets after seeing how atrocious the secondary ticketing market was. He says: “I had witnessed fans being ripped off and knew that an ethical approach to resale was needed. Seeing this happen time and time again made me want to solve the problem rather than waiting for someone else to.” Twickets allows people to sell tickets for face value or less, resulting in a lack of touts on the website as they cannot make a profit from selling at face value. The company add a 10% fee onto the ticket price, which is substantially lower compared to other secondary sites whose fees range between 25-30%. “Sellers are happy that they can transfer their tickets to a genuine fan for face value or less and buyers are happy that they can securely purchase tickets without being ripped off,” says Davies, when discussing the success of his site. If more secondary sites took the same approach as Twickets and put a cap on the price of tickets being resold, the issue with touts would essentially be eliminated. Unsurprisingly, these sites care more about making money than fans being ripped off.
Printing names onto tickets and demanding that ID is shown on the door of an event was another suggestion put forward in the Waterson enquiry. The clear benefit of this method is that only the person who bought the ticket can be allowed into the show, deterring fans from buying tickets on secondary sites. However, many venues do not uphold these restrictions fully on the night of a show; a recent example of this was at Adele’s UK tour earlier this year, where the staff only checked a handful of people’s IDs. “If a venue checks one in twenty-five people, it’s like saying you can come along with a resold ticket and you’ll be unlucky if you’re asked to show ID,” says Waterson. “It takes a lot of time to ID everyone coming into a venue, so you can see why these rules aren’t always upheld.” Regardless of whether it’s time consuming or not, if a rule has been put in place, then it should be upheld. An example of a venue that conforms to the rules is Stylus in Leeds. Katie Lee-Sang, Events Assistant at Stylus, says: “Everyone has to bring a form of ID with them to show at the door. If we don’t have a large number of people coming to the show, then we’ll just print off a customer list and check their ID against it. If it’s a bigger event, then we use scanners on each e-ticket and also check their ID. We always ensure that IDs are checked because even though it may take extra time, these rules have obviously been set for a reason.” If more venues had the same attitude as Stylus, there would ultimately be less of a mockery of the system and the rules put in place.
Another suggestion in the Waterson enquiry was to print the photo of the buyer on the ticket. This would help to prevent tickets being resold as it would be clear on entrance to the venue that the ticket hadn’t been bought by that person. This method was introduced by Glastonbury festival in 2007 and has been used ever since. Michael Eavis, organiser of the festival, spoke to the Metro newspaper in 2007 about the introduction of photo identification: “I’m absolutely determined… to wipe out ticket touts. This is just not fair for the people who want to come along and enjoy the music.” This system has not been rolled out elsewhere, which is surprising seeing as Glastonbury have almost wiped out all ticket touts because of this restriction. However, as with printing names onto tickets, this system would be a problem for those who genuinely couldn’t attend an event and wanted to resell their ticket.
Whilst there are many possible solutions to stop the reselling of tickets for inflated prices, many of the suggestions come with their own problems. Before any of these measures can be tried and tested, there are certain things that need to be put in place first. Waterson says: “There needs to be a determination from the industry to actually tackle the problem.” Once that willpower is there, hopefully there will be a greater urge for change to happen. Secondly, the Consumer Rights Act needs to be upheld to ensure transparency on secondary sites. Once that law is completely maintained, then other preventative measures can be rolled out. Solving the problem with secondary ticketing sites can be compared to building a house; unless you’ve got the foundations in place and everyone on board, you can’t successfully move forward.
Although it is unlikely that there will ever be a complete cure for this problem, there are multiple realistic suggestions on how the market can at least be improved. Many will argue that any preventative measures are a waste of time as the secondary ticketing market will always be a problematic area. But as with most things, unless you try, how can you expect any improvement, however small that may be? The fans are the most important people here and they are the ones who are receiving the bad end of the deal. The reason this campaign is so important and needs to continue to successfully progress is for one simple reason. As Circa Waves drummer Colin Jones so rightly says: “No fan ever deserves to feel like they have been ripped off.”