TICKET TOUTING

Ticket Touting

Ticket Touting

Introduction

Ticket touting is an emotive subject on which very strong and polarized views are held, by those involved in the selling of tickets for sports fixtures, concerts and theatres, and by some of the people who go to the events. There is no consensus as to whether “touting” means all reselling of tickets, all reselling not authorised by the original issuers or only the shady or less reputable activities. The whole secondary market in tickets for entertainment and sporting events is regarded by some as a scourge, where parasitic profiteering threatens the very future of the industries on which it feeds. Others see it as a valuable service, a godsend to fans who are desperate to obtain tickets for oversubscribed events, and to those who find themselves unable either to use their tickets or to obtain refunds for them. Even the same individual may protest about “touts” who buy up swathes of tickets to sell on for profit, while believing that he should be free to make a profit by selling on tickets himself.

Ticket Touting

The secondary market is by no means a new phenomenon, but the growth of the Internet has transformed and expanded it, so that tickets can now be bought and sold on an enormous scale in a very short time, and it is easy for individuals to trade in tickets from their own homes in their spare time. As tickets for many popular events are deliberately put on the market at prices which are lower than many consumers are willing to pay, substantial profits can be made, not only by businesses set up for that purpose but also by consumers who may buy more tickets than they need, in the hope that the profit on resale will finance their own tickets for an event. Organisers of the events see those profits going into the hands of secondary sellers who, they say, make no contribution to putting on the event, or to the industry. While the superficially obvious solution—of increasing ticket prices to whatever level the market will bear—might keep all the potential profit within the industry and effectively eliminate the secondary market, it would run counter to the industries' pricing policies which aim to make tickets affordable by their grass roots and genuine fans upon whose continuing interest and attendance the long term wellbeing of the industries depends. We did not receive any evidence from the grass roots or fan bases complaining that they were unable to obtain or afford tickets for their chosen events. However, we believe that more information is needed on the practices of secondary ticket agents in acquiring large blocks of tickets within a very short period of their going on sale, and the effect of this on the consumer.

Many event organisers have sought to control secondary selling by imposing terms and conditions which prohibit resale (for profit) and provide for cancellation of tickets sold in breach. However, the enforcement of such conditions raises its own ...