Memorandum submitted by the Association
of Secondary Ticket Agents (ASTA)
Mr Graham Burns is the elected chairman of the
Association of Secondary Ticket Agents. The Association was formed
in order to create a set of working guidelines within the secondary
markets that there be greater transparency within these markets
and the public's interests be better served. At the moment if
there are any grievances to be resolved the ASTA is the only generally
available point of contact for any member of the general public
to make a complaint when all else fails.
The ASTA have organised an advertising campaign
over recent months in national newspapers inviting the general
public to comment on their experiences with concert and event
tickets. The response was surprising and voluminous, this material
would be made available to the Committee should they so wish.
The association has existed for some eighteen
months now and our intentions of staying are clear for all to
see. The sale of tickets in the Secondary Market in New York is
now legal and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has signed into
law there a bill which removes all caps on what can be charged
within this free market. Interestingly it also prohibits New York
sports event organisers from cancelling the season tickets of
those fans who sell their tickets on.
Further, Governor Spitzer identified the one
area which is of great contention and we believe pivotal to the
whole concept of secondary selling in that the Government has
no hand whatsoever in the regulating of the Primary sellers but
seeks to impose limits on the Secondary Market and indeed has
already legislated.
1. THE UNDERLYING
CAUSES OF
TICKET TOUTING,
AND ITS
IMPACT ON
PERFORMERS, PROMOTERS
AND THE
PUBLIC
The fundamental cause in the growth of the secondary
market appears to be that demand far outstrips supply of those
tickets available to the popular or "in vogue" events.
The secondary market impacts performers and
promoters in a very negative way if the examples of secondary
trading by the likes of "getmetickets.com" and "tickettout.net"
are observed. The proprietor of the former Mr. Michael Rangos,
left many thousands of people without tickets outside of venues
on the night of the events these people had gone to see, travelling
on the promise of a ticket from "someone outside" the
venue.
On the other hand the secondary market invests
substantial amounts of money in promoting the sales of their tickets
and quite often the wave of advertising can be quite beneficial
to that event or artiste being promoted. This is particularly
noticeable in the medium of the Internet where an event or Artiste
can have the search results buoyed by the influx of advertising
money to the search engines in promoting ticket sales.
The general public, using the above examples
of negative impact, can find themselves travelling hundreds if
not thousands of miles in order to attend an event where they
are "going to meet somebody outside". This is an odious
practice and there are many, many documented cases of people not
receiving their tickets at all. This practice is not condoned
by ASTA and must be stopped. However, if there were no secondary
market there would be many members of the general public who would
not get to see an event/concert/artiste/show that they would very
much have liked to see but did not have a ticket. The reasons
could be many and varied but it is without doubt that without
a source of tickets "at the last minute" many people
would forgo an evening out with friends and colleagues on many
occasions.
2. 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
The United Kingdom and Western Europe operate
within a Capitalist Economy. The fundamental principles are those
of a free market. Why should tickets differ from say, Motor Vehicles?
Are we to be sold motor cars that can only be driven by the purchaser
through pre-defined routes to pre-defined destinations? And then
only be allowed to return this vehicle to the person from whom
it was purchased at our cost to be paid an amount, if at all,
that is not negotiable?
The whole structure of ticket sales needs to
be revisited and reviewed. How do you explain to a member of the
general public that although the face value of £55 is printed
on the front of a Rolling Stones concert ticket, it is quite likely
that the ticket in question actually cost £115 to obtain
from the primary source. The purchaser had to first join the fan
club or "inner circle" at a cost of $100 (£50)
and the handling charge of £10 then brought the cost up to
the figure of £115.00. Yet the face value of £55.00
is the one that the secondary purchaser sees and assumes it has
cost that amount to obtain! There needs to be more transparency
in this particular area.
One area that appears to be overlooked here
is the fact that on occasion, the secondary market sells tickets
below the face value. It is assumed that there is always a higher
value charged and this is not always the case. It does happen
on occasion that the secondary market is flooded with tickets
for events that are extremely unpopular and these tickets are
then sold for a sum substantially less than the sum paid. In this
instance the promoter has been paid the full amount and it is
the secondary market that bears the loss. Little, if anything,
is made of these occasions. Very recently, for example, on the
"double8tickets" website tickets for George Michael
concerts were available for £30.00 each yet these tickets
had a £50.00 face value.
Allowing all of the sales of a ticket to an
event to be exclusively controlled by one organisation is restrictive
in the extreme and strangles the free market, a market in which
the United Kingdom is a world leader. People do have the right
to work within the structure of this economy and to restrict or
withdraw this right is clearly against all the principles on which
this economy is based.
3. THE IMPACT
OF THE
INTERNET UPON
TRADE IN
TICKETS
There are areas within the resale of tickets,
especially by the primary agencies which have grown quite rapidly
since the advent of Internet Marketing. Packages compiled by the
primary agencies are better described in the medium of the World
Wide Web and a wider audience has been reached. This has created
some confusion however as the choice of package to see the same
event has grown. Wimbledon as an instance is quite impossible
to understand, for example there is such a price difference between
an official hospitality package on sale by appointed agents for
the first Monday at Wimbledon (£865) and the last day being
Sunday (£2850)? I imagine the strawberries and champagne
would be the same price on a rainy Monday as they are on a rainy
Sunday, the same goes with the roast beef and Yorkshire pud. We
do not suppose that the wages of the staff at Wimbledon change
much on a day to day basis at this venue and stay very much the
same for the fortnight. The facility is the same for the whole
fortnight and in fact you will see less tennis on the last day
than you would on the opening day. So why the big price difference?
It is not just the nightly news that builds the hype but the Internet
is able to build the picture into one that makes the hype seem
so tangible. It was on the Internet so it must be true! Therefore
it follows that most will believe the hefty price tag is justifiable.
The revenue of course is quite phenomenal and
the benefits to the chancellor of this increased revenue from
the secondary market are not to be lightly dismissed. Although
there is no figure the sums concerned are not insubstantial and
millions of pounds are involved.
4. WHETHER OR
NOT TICKETS'
TERMS AND
CONDITIONS BANNING
TRANSFER AND
ONWARD SALE
ARE FAIR
OR ENFORCEABLE
I refer the reader in the first instance to
the reply following question two. Tickets have been and continue
to be sold in Leicester Square for many events both inside and
outside of the Capital. These tickets are sold by so called "official"
and "unofficial" vendors alike. The practice has continued
for so long we would question whether or not it would be practical
to close down these vendors. Any such action (the closing down
of these booths) would surely be met with fierce resistance we
are sure. Printed on the reverse of each and every ticket however
are terms and conditions which imply the resale or transfer of
that ticket is in breach of the terms of sale. We question whether
or not this would hold up in a court of law.
One point of note here and one of great concern
is the lack of a refund policy. The Primary Market have no mechanism
whatsoever of processing a refund in the case of a genuine request
for such a refund. The Secondary market however has such a policy
and it is a prerequisite to membership of the ASTA that you have
such a policy and a mechanism in place to fulfil this.
5. THE MERITS
OF NEW
APPROACHES BY
TICKET AGENTS
ATTEMPTING TO
PREVENT TRANSFER
OF TICKETS,
INCLUDING WIDER
USE OF
PERSONAL ID
This is clearly perpetuating the abuse of trade
from a dominant position within the marketplace. It would be hard
to stretch the imagination to see why one would need a piece of
identification to enter a concert or West End theatre! This is
clearly restrictive trading and monopolistic.
6. WHETHER OR
NOT THE
EXISTING OFFENCES
OF SALE
BY AN
UNAUTHORISED 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
This existing legislation should be dismantled.
The original report by His Honour Lord Justice Taylor subsequent
to the Hillsborough disaster identified Football Hooliganism as
one of the main contributory factors. For example if the tout,
either on the street on match day or in a well run professional
office was allowed to sell 50 tickets to for example to a legendary
Cardiff City Hooligan Firm in the Arsenal supporters home section
at an FA Cup tie on Saturday afternoon there would most probably
be hell to pay.
So he (His Honour Lord Justice Taylor) advised
the FA and the Premier League to make all Stadiums in the Premier
League all seated Stadiums, the clubs could then distribute tickets
more securely ie the away fans will be sitting with away fans
and the home with the home rather than anybody going to the box
office and getting in the queue on the day that tickets go on
sale as was in the old days and be able to buy where you wanted,
home or away. It is illegal for the Clubs in The Premier League
to sell tickets for a match on match days, this is obviously to
stop rival away supporters being able to purchase tickets for
the home supporters section and cause mayhem. So why do tickets
still go on open sale to supporters at some matches in the Premier
League on match days? This happened this year at Arsenal's home
match v Manchester City on a Tuesday night in April. It also happened
at an actual FA Cup 3rd round Tie two years ago at Highbury, Arsenal
v Cardiff City. Cardiff City are well know to be high up the Hooligan
League and to much amazement the tickets were on open sale to
anybody who was asking for them in a polite manner.
This is illegal and if caught in the act a ticket
tout would at best end up with a criminal record and could be
banned from football matches for up to six years, and they have
to go to a designated police station on match days not only for
the club matches that they were arrested at but all England matches
over land and sea, which means his family holiday is corrupted
because every two years England are qualifying for either the
Euro Championships or the World Cup in June and July, not withstanding
the immediate fine one would receive from the magistrate once
convicted. So, should Arsenal not be banned forthwith from Europe
for 6 years? Clearly this needs revision.
Why was the Football bill regarding ticket touts
enacted in the first place? Was it because it was a vehicle for
the hooligans to buy tickets in the rival fans area so they can
have a good old punch up? Or was it because clever speculators
were gambling their own money by buying what could be described
as stock at one price and selling it at another to make a profit
and the FA or Premier League or relevant clubs (bearing in mind
the clubs had already made a profit from the speculator) were
not getting a slice out of it?
If the answer is Hooliganism, it has failed
miserably because the modern day organized Hooligan simply does
not buy a ticket to see the match. They organise meets via modern
technology and smash designated meeting points to pieces up and
down the country every weekend because live matches are shown
the length and breadth of the country in Public Houses and it
happens in towns every weekend bar none.
We thank you for taking the time to read our
submission and we hope we are given further opportunities to make
positive contributions to these proceedings.
June 2007
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