Examination of Witnesses (Questions 78-79)
MR JOE
COHEN, MR
GRAHAM BURNS,
MR DOMINIC
TITCHENER-BARRETT,
MR ERIC
BAKER, MR
PAUL DRAKE
AND MR
ALASTAIR MCGOWAN
26 JUNE 2007
Chairman: We now turn to the secondary
market and can I welcome Alasdair McGowan and Paul Drake of eBay,
Eric Baker of viagogo, Dominic Titchener-Barrett of the Association
of Secondary Ticket Agents and Joe Cohen of Seatwave.
Q78 Alan Keen: Good morning. I had
a discussion with some sports fans in my constituency recently
when I knew we were going to do this inquiry. They talk mainly
about the people selling tickets outside sports grounds, saying,
"Got any tickets, got any tickets, does anybody want a ticket?"
They regarded them as scum. Do you think that is a fair description?
Mr Titchener-Barrett: I think
that is an ignorant position to take, na-ve in the extreme.
I would draw a very clear distinction between selling in the secondary
ticket market and ticket touting. There is a clear distinction
and today all we have heard is emotional arguments based on the
very worst aspects of ticket touting. We have not actually heard
the other side of the story about the movements we have taken
in-house to try and regulate and improve our image. I do not think
that is a fair assumption. That is a very one-sided, one-eyed
view of the industry.
Q79 Alan Keen: I was talking about
the people outside football grounds selling tickets.
Mr Titchener-Barrett: Again, I
would draw a very clear distinction between the individuals that
we have here and the people that my organisation represents and
those people that represent those kinds of persons. My personal
opinion is that is the unacceptable face of the secondary ticket
market. In fact, I would call it a tertiary market; I would not
actually include them as part of the secondary market. I would
say it is a tertiary market operating under their own remit.
Mr Baker: I think what you are
hearing from your constituents highlights a lot of what we have
heard here today, which is that where fans are unhappy it is because
you deal with people who give you fraudulent tickets. It is not
safe and secure, it is not guaranteed and they do not know who
they are dealing with. Whether you are buying a ticket, a car,
a piece of art or any goods, if you are dealing with someone like
that, you probably would call someone like that "scum".
What we have tried to do at viagogo is create a safe, secure,
guaranteed online mechanism so the fans that we work with, be
it at Manchester United, Everton or Chelsea, are very happy that
they do not have to deal with these characters outside the stadium,
and when you give consumers a safe, secure alternative, you can
eliminate the type of shenanigans that go on outside a stadium.
Mr Cohen: I would like to add
to that, I think it probably helps the Committee if we explain
how Seatwave works as well. Seatwave is a marketplace where people
can buy and sell tickets and we provide a guarantee that we call
a "ticket integrity", which means that you will receive
exactly the ticket that you purchased on the site in good time
for the event and, if you do not, we will give you a 150% refund
on your money. The other thing we provide is something called
"ticket cover", which is an insurance product that we
have underwritten, which means—and actually, Mr Goldsmith
was wrong about this—that if there are traffic delays on
the way to an event, if there is rail disruption, if you are injured,
if you have illness or death in the family, you will get a 100%
refund for your ticket. If the event is cancelled and rescheduled
at a time that you cannot attend or it is not rescheduled at all,
you will get a 100% refund not only on the price of the ticket
but on any mark-up that was involved and any booking fees involved,
and that is at no additional cost to consumers; we underwrite
and pay for that entire cost. There is no-one in this room who
can say that they do the same thing to protect consumers in the
way that Seatwave does.
Mr Burns: With respect to my colleague
Mr Cohen, ASTA was formed, as many people are aware, to really
create an aura of confidence within the secondary market and these
guidelines that Mr Cohen talks about are exactly the guidelines
that we adopted as an association off the back of the guidelines
used by the National Association of Ticket Brokers in America,
with whom we are associated.
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