Cap Event Ticket 'Re-Sale' Prices
- by: Mathew Wilkinson
- recipient: UK Government
Re-Selling of tickets, whether it is through online channels, or touts standing outside venues, has been around for a while. In some instances it can be a great help for people who may have bought tickets with a genuine desire to attend the event, and then through factors out of their control, have found they are unable to.
Unfortunately, there are those who abuse these systems and use them solely for their own personal gain, buying tickets purely with the intent of selling them on at extortionate prices. The actions of these few unscrupulous people often make it unnecessarily difficult, and cripplingly expensive for fans to obtain tickets to the events they want to go to. Genuine fans are often even priced out of the market for tickets altogether, which is highly unfair. The higher prices charged by touts also increases the possibility that no one will bother to buy the tickets, and so they will therefore go unused; something I think the artists putting on the events would not want to happen.
This problem has been highlighted recently with occurrences such as the rapid selling out of Take That's Progress 2011 tour, where tickets originally priced at 85GBP appeared on Re-Sale sites MINUTES after they went on sale for prices of up to 1000GBP. Blink-182's upcoming UK tour is another example, where tickets with a face value of 32GBP are now on re-sale for 85GBP. In some cases tickets are even advertised at elevated prices BEFORE they have even gone on sale, showing that people even PLAN to buy tickets and re-sell them for gain. There are countless other examples of this sort of ridiculousness across all types of event and in many countries.
It should NOT be allowed for people to re-sell these tickets at a higher price than they paid for them, there is no justifiable reason for it. Re-sale tickets should have their prices FIXED at face value, with leeway ONLY allowed for factors such as postage and booking fees. Not only will this allow people to actually be able to AFFORD to go to the gigs they want to, it will also mean that pressure on ticket sale sites will be relieved, as the percentage of people buying just to re-sell at higher prices will be removed. This will mean that fans get the OPPORTUNITY to buy the tickets in the first place, and not need to camp out at ticket offices, or spend their time clicking away at 6 different ticket websites at once struggling to beat the touts to the tickets.
This needs to change!
Unfortunately, there are those who abuse these systems and use them solely for their own personal gain, buying tickets purely with the intent of selling them on at extortionate prices. The actions of these few unscrupulous people often make it unnecessarily difficult, and criplingly expensive for genuine fans to obtain tickets to the events they want to go to. Genuine fans are often even priced out of the market for tickets altogether, which is highly unfair.
This problem has been highlighted recently with instances such as the rapid selling out of Take That's Progress 2011 tour, where tickets originally prices at 85GBP appeared on re-sale sites MINUTES after they went on sale for prices of up to 1000GBP. Blink-182's recently announced UK tour is another example, where tickets with a face value of GBP32 are now on 're-sale' for GBP85. In some cases tickets are even advertised at elevated prices BEFORE they have even gone on sale, showing that people even PLAN to buy tickets and re-sell them for gain. There are countless other examples of this sort of ridiculousness across all types of event and in many countries.
It should NOT be allowed for people to re-sell these tickets at a higher price than they paid for them, there is no justifiable reason for it. Re-sale tickets should have their prices FIXED at face value, with leeway ONLY allowed for factors such as postage and booking fees. Not only will this allow people to actually be able to AFFORD to go to the gigs they want to, it will also mean that pressure on ticket sale sites will be relieved, as the percentage of people buying just to re-sell at higher prices will be removed. This will mean that fans get the OPPORTUNITY to buy the tickets in the first place, and not need to camp out at ticket offices, or spend their time clicking away at 6 different ticket websites at once struggling to beat the touts to the tickets.
This needs to change!
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