Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-28)

MR PAUL VAUGHAN, MR ALEX HORNE AND MR NICHOLAS BITEL

26 JUNE 2007

  Q20  Paul Farrelly: The last one-day inquiry we did was into the quiz TV industry and we have seen what happened there afterwards. During that inquiry it was quite clear that many people exploit the Internet to have sophisticated calling systems to maximise their chances, and some people make a good return on it. That is clearly a feature of applications to official primary ticket agencies. When it comes to the secondary agents, do you have any evidence that those major operations are more than just exchanges; that they have links, particularly in setting themselves up, with the organised touting fraternity?

  Mr Vaughan: They are genuine marketplaces. eBay is a very good example and is a very good marketplace. In terms of its ticketing, it is able to control the types of tickets that go on there. For things like charitable concerts in Hyde Park, for instance, it is very easy to take them down; whereas in other things it seems to be extremely difficult for them to control. They will give you the numbers later probably, but about 60%-odd of people will only sell one or two tickets; but that also does not talk about the other 30-40% that sell multiple tickets. Whether it be rugby, concert, tennis or whatever, there are people on viagogo, certainly today, offering 18 tickets which do not exist yet. We are flabbergasted as to how that works. There must be a connection into some way of saying, "It's an easy route through"; newspapers used to be the route years ago; this is just the electronic version of it.

  Q21  Paul Farrelly: The question was about the specialist, not eBay which sells tickets as well as unwanted Christmas presents. Do you have any evidence, being able to establish themselves, that these secondary sellers are more than just exchanges; that they actually are complicit and collaborate with organised touting operations with sophisticated application strategies?

  Mr Bitel: First of all, some of the internet sales operations that you are seeing are purely touts in another form. We at Wimbledon have obtained injunctions against a number of ticket touts; it used to be street touts. We now know that they are running ticket sites on the Internet. They are not the exchange mechanisms; they are not the viagogos of this world; but for the punter they cannot see the difference between a "Sold Out Events", if that is the name of the company, or "London Ticket Brokers" or "viagogo". They do not see the difference when they are the customer. Secondly, some of the exchange companies are offering a facility which says that if you do not get your tickets we guarantee that you get the ticket. How do you do that in a marketplace where there are no legitimate tickets for you to access?

  Q22  Paul Farrelly: Clearly in the evidence that you have given, there are very clear remedies that could be adopted. Sellers could be forced to put on the ticket seat number and the block number to identify where it is coming from, and also make sure that is a real ticket. We could extend the protections that are there for football at the moment and the Olympics quite simply through a statutory instrument; that is quite clear. The Government in a free market is always going to be reluctant to legislate and regulate and has to be proportionate. One of the reasons is that there are always unintended consequences of legislation. The question I have got is really from the football evidence. What evidence have you got of the impact on prices of the legislation that is currently in place?

  Mr Horne: The impact of prices in terms of the secondary market?

  Q23  Paul Farrelly: Just the impact on pricing.

  Mr Horne: In terms of the football fraternity we work very hard to maintain a reasonable level of ticket prices for tickets available (and I hate to use the word again because I know Adrian will pick up on it) to the genuine fans and genuine supporters. I know this is something keen to Alan's heart. At both the Football Association or the premier league clubs, we work incredibly hard to keep ticket prices at a very reasonable level. We know, as Nick has highlighted already, that Cup Final tickets, for example that were a maximum price of £95, more widely available at £60 and £80, were trading hands for thousands and thousands of pounds. That is the only evidence I have specifically in relation to this.

  Mr Bitel: We acted for UEFA and when the law was extended to cover England matches abroad we did not see much effect upon the ticket prices in the secondary market. It used to be illegal only to sell tickets for England matches at home and now it is for abroad. Certainly for the European matches we have not seen much difference.

  Q24  Paul Farrelly: The introduction of controls in football following Hillsborough you would not say has produced any unintended and adverse consequences that affected fans?

  Mr Bitel: I certainly would not.

  Mr Horne: I do not think so, no. It is beneficial benefits of what have followed the introduction of legislation in football. We all know it came about because of segregation issues in the Taylor Report, and the idea that you want traceable tickets into fans; you know who is sitting there; and you have segregation at football.

  Q25  Alan Keen: I will come back to Alex and Wembley. Philip raised the point about the prawn sandwich brigade. It is true, is it not, Alex, that the FA were reluctant to have to sell as many debentures as they have but that was essential, was it not, because of the financing of Wembley Stadium itself? Is it not true that fans whose team maybe gets to Wembley for the first time ever will pay almost anything to be there? Those fans who never complain about managers' and players' salaries, because they think they deserve it, they do object to having to pay over the odds for tickets where that money goes out of the game. Is that not really the main complaint that fans have?

  Mr Horne: I think that is right. It is worth just reflecting on the ownership structure of Wembley Stadium. It is owned 100% by the Football Association and the profits generated ultimately by Wembley will be reinvested back into football, which is the argument drawn up in the Five Sports paper. Yes, we have sold 17,000 seats on a ten-year licence basis to finance the world's largest and greatest stadium. To pick up on your other point, not only do fans probably object to being forced to pay substantial amounts of money for tickets, but fans would also object to having to buy tickets through routes, as I mentioned before, that are not safe for the consumer. They are not guaranteeing access to a stadium by having to resort to picking up tickets from internet sites; or indeed trying to get them on the street on the way into Wembley; and they cannot guarantee the atmosphere around them if they do not know whether they are going to be in with their own supporters. With a public order and protection hat on, as I mentioned in my opening statement, it is a very important aspect of the legislation for us because it enables us to track supporters of different teams into the appropriate ends of the stadium.

  Q26  Adam Price: Shaun Woodward, the Minister who is appearing before us later, has said he thinks the majority of ticket buyers are relaxed about ticket resale. You have just said that the majority of fans object. Do you have any evidence of this? What is the view on this?

  Mr Vaughan: If you want to buy a ticket you will never be upset by people selling you a ticket.

  Q27  Adam Price: That seems a fair point! I know—I have been there myself.

  Mr Vaughan: If you are trying to actually encourage kids to play the sport and keep the sport going for a longer time, it is the sport that loses out.

  Mr Bitel: I think we all have had complaints from customers saying, "Why is it that your tickets are being sold at inflated prices", and it turns out when we investigate that it is not us who is selling them. We have all experienced that and our ticket office this particular week with Wimbledon is full of complaints of that nature.

  Q28  Paul Farrelly: We have got the Rugby World Cup coming up as the next major tournament in September, what is so special about the Olympics where the Government has accepted anti-touting restrictions and put in place legislation that should not apply to events like the Rugby World Cup, some of whose games are being played in Wales and Scotland?

  Mr Vaughan: All major events have something about them which needs to be ensured, that if you are bidding for something as a country—and what has actually happened is that London, having won the Olympic bid, the Government has signed up to protection of ticket touting, that that should be extended through to big events like the Rugby World Cup who do want protection if they are going to move into new markets, or indeed come back to old markets. The Rugby World Cup has only been going since 1987, so when it wants to come back here we are going to have to be able to say to them, "We'll protect your tickets", because that is their key source of income, and they are not cheap tickets I have to say.

  Mr Bitel: I am Chairman of the Major Events Panel of UK Sport and we are seeing more and more major events saying to us, "If you wish to bid you have to protect the tickets". We are seeing that. The Rugby World Cup is one example. I know Scotland have a desire to bid against England maybe and others. Scotland maybe together with Wales, and maybe Ireland. Almost certainly the IRU is going to say, "You have to have this type of legislation in place". The Cricket World Cup is another example. The Caribbean Islands—nine different sovereign nations introduced laws to outlaw ticket touting for the Cricket World Cup as part of a prerequisite of obtaining that event. I think if Britain wishes to attract more major events in the future we are certainly going to have to see that type of protection being extended. I think extending it to 2012 gave a legitimate expectation to a number of these major international sporting organisations that Britain will do likewise for their events as well.

  Chairman: We need to move on. Thank you very much.





 
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