Memorandum submitted by National Arenas
Association and Nottingham Arena
I write to you in your capacity as Inquiry Manager—DCMS
Select Committee into ticket touting in a dual capacity as Chair
of the National Arenas Association (NAA) and as Chief Executive,
Nottingham Arena.
The NAA is the trade representative body incorporating
15 of the major Arena venues in the UK. To qualify for membership
each arena has to have an audience capacity of at least 5,000
people.
The NAA member venues play a significant part
in the live music industry catering for in excess of eight million
customers per year across the entire range of music genre!
Needless to say it is the venue managers and
support staff that have to deal with the myriad of problems experienced
on the night by members of the public that have been "ripped
off" by unauthorised and totally unscrupulous ticket touts
such as:
— The ticket tout (having extracted
the money via a website credit card transaction) doesn't turn
up to hand over the tickets.
— The "front row seat ticket"
purchased in good faith by the member of the public at a premium
rate is located at the rear of the arena or has a restricted view.
— Tickets have been sold on the basis
that certain performers are playing [...] when in fact they are
not.
— Tickets have appeared on eBay and
other sites for shows that haven't actually gone on sale and couldn't
possibly be in the ownership of the seller.
— Tickets for seating reserved for
disabled people sold at premium rates.
These are just some examples of the type of
issue all the NAA venue managers have had to deal with more and
more frequently and it is no different at the Nottingham Arena
in my capacity of Chief Executive.
I can assure the Select Committee that when
members of the public are turned away from a show they have been
looking forward to often for several months, or they haven't got
seats in the correct location it is a very traumatic experience
for these customers especially when the person realises they may
have just lost several hundred pounds on top of the cost of travelling
to the venue and, in some cases, overnight accommodation.
Whilst there have been no recorded instances
of public order problems to date, heated exchanges have taken
place at NAA venues between dissatisfied customers and ticket
touts requiring intervention by the venue security teams.
I also have other concerns regarding the ticket
touting issue including the loss of VAT on the inflated ticket
price to the Treasury, and the fact that the originator of the
music played at the event is being cheated of revenue that is
rightly theirs as royalty payments via the Performing Rights Society
(PRS) are calculated on the gross ticket sales at face value.
There is also no doubt in my mind that the future
wellbeing of the live music industry could be put into jeopardy
if tickets continue to be available at grossly inflated prices
only for those that can afford to pay the extortionate prices.
This practice, even when it involves only a couple of extra tickets
purchased by a "bedroom" tout, for example, a student
who is lucky enough to access tickets when they go on sale who
buys four tickets keeps two and sells the remaining pair of tickets
on the Internet at an inflated price is still preventing young
people in particular from attending live shows. In other words,
the touts are pricing tickets out of the reach of the future supporters
of our industry.
The NAA is committed to helping the DCMS in
finding a solution to ticket touting having been an active member
of the Summit Meetings convened by Tessa Jowell, Secretary of
State for Culture, Media and Sport over the past eighteen months
or so.
The commitment in attending the Summit Meetings,
and the actions already taken by the stakeholders in the live
music industry and those involved in the staging of major sporting
events clearly demonstrates the importance of this issue, and
I would urge the Select Committee to take the appropriate action
to stamp out this unfair, illegal and unscrupulous practice.
June 2007
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