Purple rage – the re-sale tickets stitch-up

You are to be congratulated in persevering with your efforts to get this covered. Have you other sites where you flagged this up?

Hello John, secondary ticketing sites are currently being investigated by the Government. We have sent our evidence to the Department of Culture Media and Sport as part of its investigation. We would like to see the Government review crack down on those who resell tickets at inflated prices on an industrial scale.

New laws are nice ideas but are probably not a priority. A Private Member’s Bill might stand a chance if they didn’t waste their opportunities on measures that are already in train [like course information for prospective university students]. What we need is something that is self-policing introduced within the secondary legislation of consumer rights where a Statutory Instrument can be made more easily. What about if a ticket sale breaches the rules then the transaction is void, the customer can keep and use the ticket, and the seller has to refund the buyer in full?

I agree. These tickets are expensive at their face value and the profit can be shared out without charging an additional fee to the customer.

I see the virtue in that Em. It should lead to some creative marketing techniques. Tickets could be batched by reference to their forward release date so that thirty-day advance tickets are sold at, say, £40 each, twenty-day tickets at £50, fifteen-day at £60, and so on. There could still be a final clearance at a discount to ensure a full house. Given that blocks of seats in the venue are also divided into top price, bottom price, and several in-between prices, according to proximity to the stage or quality of the seating, the opportunity to manage the yield might actually be enhanced and greater profits made [very few events are actually a total sell-out]. At least the process would be both transparent and orderly and the opportunity for speculative touting greatly diminished.

Thank you both. I am not clear @John Ward, if you mean £60 face value tickets are sold at £40 or if you mean the venue releases tickets at higher prices as the date approaches.

Certainly, there is lots of scope for this and it seems to be current practice in one sense. I wanted a block of 3 tickets to see War Horse to take a friend before they returned abroad. I managed to book the last block of 3 seats in a good central position, and assumed they were cancellations. You can imagine my surprise when we turned up at the theatre and were surrounded by whole groups of school kids, who certainly weren’t paying £65 per seat. Fortunately, they were very well behaved and didn’t ruin the show for us. Otherwise I would certainly have made a complaint!

Sorry I did not make my suggestion clear, Em, but I did mean that the face value would be the selling price on the date of issue so that, as you say, “the venue releases tickets at higher prices as the date approaches”. The ‘value’ of a ticket is affected by its scarcity or desirability and that changes in a dynamic way in various dimensions towards the performance date [and this can have perverse effects as what started life as the cheap seats become hot tickets later on and might cost more than the best in the house which sold out first]. Promoters can also employ discounts against previous face values in order to clear unpopular blocks and fill the hall. That is all related to primary selling. Reselling is a different game and I would say that there is no justification for any mark-up over the price that the equivalent ticket would be selling for on that day – but that does need further consideration when all tickets in the specific block or section have sold out as obviously any returns will attract a premium. Reselling should only involve genuine returns and not withheld stock.

We have experienced the ‘school kids’ factor but I expect a deal was done to secure a sale of fifty seats that otherwise might have been empty. The same happens with pensioner groups who might not be so well-behaved of course! This is more likely at continuing shows that are on for a duration. ‘One Night Only’ events are much more difficult to manage and a whole raft of selling techniques comes into play.

Touring shows are another problem. In some towns and cities there is a poor choice of venues at the required date. The assembly house might be too small but the football stadium far too big depending on the attraction of the act, so ticket pricing becomes critical.

Somehow, the notion that the spectator yearning for a glimpse of Rod Stewart will be happy with a Roy Orbison tribute act at the local leisure centre doesn’t sound very realistic.

That’s a good idea Alfa but I think a lot of venues [like football grounds that only know about season tickets and turnstiles] do not have any administrative infrastructure for selling tickets for occasional big gigs and adjusting the prices as the date and demand converge. Many venues just don’t want the bother of it and are happy to outsource it to agents. It might also be wrapped up as a package in the contract with the promoter. I think Em [above] offered the best approach to the problem.

A further point is that many events are organised as tours using a lot of different venues. It is best that the ticket selling is managed consistently.