Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Written Evidence


Memorandum submitted by Scarlet Mist

  I am the founder and CEO of Scarlet Mist, a free face-value ticket exchange service. The service was set up in 2003, with the specific intention of getting a Glastonbury ticket for a friend, and has been expanded to cover other festivals. It is designed to cut touts out of the loop by providing a facility for customers with tickets they can no longer use to find a buyer.

  There are a number of reasons why ticket touts exist.

  1.  At an economical and philosophical level, touts exist because the face value of tickets is lower than the "market" value. If ticket prices were increased to a true market value then there would be no scope for touts. However, this situation is unlikely ever to occur, since most artists do not want to be seen as selling out or profiteering, and they deliberately hold down prices to ensure that their core fans can attend their gigs. The same considerations apply to sport. This puts performers in a difficult position. Many performers are actively opposed to touts, and yet are not prepared to see prices rise.

  2.  Touts also exist because of the "convenience" factor for some customers. Concert-goers often leave it until the last minute to decide whether or not to attend an event, by which time it may have sold out. They may be quite happy to pay a premium price for the convenience.

  3.  Promoters and venues do not typically offer a refund or exchange policy. Customers finding themselves with a ticket they can no longer use have a series of possible choices. If they attend the event, and try and sell their ticket to another customer, they may be accosted by the police, or by a ticket tout. Neither of these are pleasant thoughts. Scarlet Mist came into being specifically to address this need.

  4.  Ticket touts may deliberately cash in on an event which they know will be oversubscribed. They have the time and expertise to buy multiple tickets (often with collaborators).

  5.  The actual face-value purchase price of tickets is very obscure. It is hard to see the "on-the-road" price. The purchase price is made up from the ticket price, booking charge, handling charge, delivery charge etc. Advertisements often show prices that are lower than can actually be realized. This makes it confusing for customers, and allows touting to flourish.

  6.  Ticket touts, unlike genuine traders, pay no taxes. They work entirely in the black market. I would like to see this addressed. In particular, I would like to see eBay and similar sites be compelled to provide details of high-earning touts on to the Inland Revenue.

  My impression is that the public have an ambivalent and contradictory view. Surveys have shown that the public feels a distaste for touting, but there are many calls to keep it legal.

  There are specific risks that customers take when buying from touts, including forgeries, fraud, cancellation of the event and general consumer rights.

 WHETHER OR NOT RESALE OF A TICKET, AT FACE VALUE OR AT A HIGHER VALUE, SHOULD BE PERMITTED IN PRINCIPLE; AND WHETHER THE ACCEPTABILITY OR OTHERWISE OF RESALE DEPENDS ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH TICKETS ARE OFFERED FOR RESALE

  1.  While tickets are non-refundable and non-exchangeable, customers should have the right, under general consumer law, to be able to resell their tickets. Promoters should not forbid this, unless they themselves are prepared to handle refunds.

  2.  In principle, customers should not be permitted to resell them for a higher value. In practice, unfortunately, this is extremely difficult to enforce, for the following reasons:

  (a)  The "face value" of tickets is often unclear.

  (b)  Tickets can be sold or resold as part of a "package", which may include hospitality, beverages, transport etc. This makes it difficult to determine the separate price of the ticket.

  (c)  In any event, this would be time-consuming and hard to police.

  3.  The resale of tickets is more acceptable in cases where there is a genuine need to sell unusable tickets, rather than when there is blatant or deliberate profiteering. The difficulty arises in distinguishing these two scenarios.

THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNET UPON TRADE IN TICKETS

  The internet has allowed ticket sales to boom. It permits thousands of people to make purchases simultaneously, allowing popular events to sell out within minutes. It also allows casual users, who would not have been prepared to travel to the box office, to buy tickets. It greatly facilitates all sorts of touting, especially the "bedroom tout". The internet has also lowered the cost for promoters of ticketing.

WHETHER OR NOT TICKETS' TERMS AND CONDITIONS BANNING TRANSFER AND ONWARD SALE ARE FAIR OR ENFORCEABLE

  In my view, these terms are unfair, unless the promoters themselves are prepared to offer refunds.

  Whether or not they are enforceable is up for debate. Glastonbury has pioneered the use of personalised tickets, and there are other technological methods to enforce non-interchangeability. All of these are expensive; they cause delays at the turnstiles, and do not address the fundamental unfairness of non-interchangeable tickets.

WHETHER OR NOT THE EXISTING OFFENCES OF SALE BY AN UNAUTHORIZED PERSON IN A PUBLIC PLACE OF A TICKET FOR A DESIGNATED FOOTBALL MATCH, OR FOR EVENTS AT THE LONDON 2012 GAMES, SHOULD BE EXTENDED TO COVER OTHER SPORTING OR CULTURAL EVENTS

  There are specific public order issues relating to football, which do not apply to most other events.

  I would like to see Street Traders of tickets treated in the same way as Street Traders of all other products.

June 2007





 
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