Kylie Minogue, Westlife, Sting, Robbie Williams. Just some of the big names selling tickets for gigs this year through the leading online ticket company, Ticketmaster. But many of their tickets are being bought up and then re-sold within minutes of them going on sale, at vastly inflated prices.
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This profiteering isn't happening on any random auction site. It's actually happening on Ticketmaster's own partner site, Getmein.com. And for every ticket that's resold there, Getmein take a sizable percentage.
Watchdog wanted to see how quickly tickets sold through Ticketmaster appeared on Getmein. We knew that the first tickets to James Blunt's forthcoming tour were going on sale at 9am on 22nd September, so on that morning our researchers set up two computers. One was logged on to the Ticketmaster pre-sale site, the other, getmein.com.
For an hour, our researcher kept trying to buy a ticket through Ticketmaster, but the site just kept saying none was available. However, in less than half an hour, tickets to the concert were appearing on getmein.com. The most expensive one was a £30 seat, listed for almost £150. It appeared that some people were buying up tickets with just one intention; to make a profit.
Ticket touts have always been with us, the difference is now they don't have to operate on street corners anymore. Ticketmaster, through its subsidiary website Getmein, is giving them the means to do it from the comfort of their own homes. And Getmein make a tidy profit in the process.
Ticketmaster's an American company that's grown by paying to become the main provider of tickets for live events. It now sells around 150 million tickets in 20 different countries each year. Not just for popular music shows, but classical concerts, stand-up acts and some of the biggest international sporting events. But it's pop and rock artists that attract the biggest trade.
We met Barbara Cowlard, a lifelong Rod Stewart fan who has been to many of his concerts spanning the last four decades. When new 2010 UK tour dates at the London O2 arena were announced, Barbara made special arrangements to come in late at work to ensure she was ready to buy tickets the morning that they went on sale in late November 2009. Despite being ready with phone and laptop the moment they went on sale, within minutes she found that all of the seats had been sold, apart from less desirable tickets high up and at the back of the stadium. Within 20 minutes though, she found plenty of tickets for sale on Getmein and other secondary ticketing sites priced at 3 or 4 times the face value.
Barbara was dismayed, but didn't give up. When two further tour dates were announced, she tried again. But each time, she faced the same problem. Naturally, Barbara was very upset:
"I was positively tearful, which is not like me at all. But I was so angry that they were doing this to fans. That the fans couldn't get the tickets that they wanted unless they were prepared to spend an exorbitant amount."
Ticketmaster say their Getmein site is a marketplace where genuine fans can buy unwanted tickets at a fair price. It says it's preferable to fans having to deal with touts. But if it's allowing people to re-sell tickets within seconds of buying them, at massively inflated prices, what's the difference? And what's the company doing to stop them? Not enough - there's absolutely nothing to stop you buying your ticket on Ticketmaster or any other site, and then listing it straight away on Getmein.com for whatever price you choose. There's no cap on the prices that can be charged.
Although Ticketmaster does limit the number of tickets any one person can buy, the problem persists. We found a Sting ticket priced at an unbelievable £1,208. A top ticket to see opera singer Andrea Bocelli could set you back £1760, and if you wanted one of the best seats for Kylie Minogue's upcoming tour, you could pay 16 times face value at £1868.90. And because Getmein takes a percentage, the more these tickets sell for, the more money it makes them.
But Getmein were also prepared to allow a trade in tickets to the charity concert 'Help for Heroes' at Twickenham in September. Tom Jones, Pixie Lott and Robbie all performed for free at the event, but hundreds of people were listing tickets to the concert on Getmein with a sizable mark-up. They stood to make a profit, as did Getmein who generally take 10% on the list price, and another 15% when the transaction is completed. Getmein say that they donated a proportion of their fees from the re-sale of Help for Heroes tickets to the charity.
The 'Help for Heroes' concert was staged by entertainment company Live Nation, a company that merged with Ticketmaster earlier this year. But the terms and conditions on the back of the Live Nation Help for Heroes tickets state that you are not permitted to resell them in the course of business or for a profit. Because we found this confusing, we called Ticketmaster, posing as a customer, and they told us that we could sell the ticket for a profit on Getmein for example, but if a Ticketmaster ticket was found on Ebay, and priced excessively, it could be cancelled.
So, Live Nation, a company that's merged with Ticketmaster says you can't re-sell the 'Help for Heroes' tickets for a profit, yet Getmein, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ticketmaster gives customers the means to do just that. But you can't sell the ticket for a profit on Ebay. Not exactly a consistent policy!
Of course, there's nothing illegal in what Getmein or Ticketmaster are doing, and people are perfectly free to resell as many concert tickets as they want for as much as they like. Secondary ticket sites clearly have a purpose, especially if you have a ticket you can no longer make use of. But if tickets are being purchased by some, solely to be re-sold immediately, aren't true fans losing out?
Watchdog asked the artists whose concert tickets were being resold for a profit on Getmein for their views.
Dave Chumbley, Kylie Mingogue's Live agent:
"You've told me that 527 Kylie tickets were already on sale on Getmein before they'd been sold on general release - itt is a lot more than I would have liked. It is in the culture I'm afraid, because unlike, say Denmark, the [British] government have not made the reselling of tickets illegal. For good or bad reasons, people are entitled to resell the tickets.
"My view is, in a perfect world, I would prefer it if tickets could not be resold in the way they are allowed to now. The people re-selling them, it's not because they've got a cold and cannot attend the performance, because the show's are not for five months. The fact is, that the artist, people like myself (agents) and the promoters spend a lot of time trying define what is the fairest and the right price for tickets. For us to put a ticket on sale one day, after agonising over this, for someone else to make more money out of the ticket than the artists does seems wrong. The simple fact is, we are dealing with an imperfect situation."
James Blunt:
"It's with huge dismay that every time I organise special pre-sales for my core fans, I see established ticket agents enabling scalpers to pluck the best seats and stick them up on eBay or other random ticket websites at ridiculous prices, ripping off the very people the likes of Ticketmaster say they're looking after."
Bryn Parry OBE, CEO & Co Founder, Help for Heroes:
"The Heroes Concert was organised by Live Nation, the largest live entertainment company in the world, in support of Help for Heroes.
"Therefore, the ticketing was also managed by Live Nation and Help For Heroes had no control over this, aside from asking those booking tickets to consider also buying one for a member of the Armed Forces. The terms on the ticket are those agreed by Live Nation and Ticketmaster, to minimize those bought and sold to make a profit.
"Over 200 tickets were generously purchased for troops by the public through the Treat a Troop initiative and another 200 were bought for injured service personnel by an anonymous donor.
"Help for Heroes is clearly disappointed that some members of the public sought to make a profit from tickets for a concert organised to raise money for injured servicemen and women. The concert was a huge success and helped raise nearly a £1m for our wounded boys and girls and was broadcast live on BBC 1 to an audience of over 6m."
Ticketmaster sent a response to the issues raised in our programme:
We do acknowledge that the issue of ticket availability and the resale market are often highly complex and emotive consumer issues.
Statement of Response:
We were disappointed to hear that Barbara Cowlard was unable to get the tickets she wanted for Rod Stewart through Ticketmaster. As with all popular artists the demand for tickets often outstrips supply and the rate of sale can also be affected by the number of pre-sales to fan clubs and priority sponsor groups, which means that the original availability of tickets is greatly reduced when tickets go on sale to the general public.
The ticket resale market, driven by the supply and demand for live events tickets, has always existed. However, the internet has enabled the number of ticket resale sites to increase massively over the past 5 years and as illustrated by BBC Watchdog reports in September 2005, October 2005, January 2007 and March 2009, some of these sites have fraudulently capitalised on consumer demand for live entertainment tickets.
Last year the DCMS Select Committee investigated the UK resale market and concluded that the entertainment industry needed to offer a market based solution for the legitimate resale of tickets. Ticketmaster purchased GET ME IN! primarily to provide Ticketmaster customers with a safer option for purchasing tickets in the resale market, if they so choose.
GET ME IN!'s buyer guarantee ensures that when consumers purchase tickets listed by sellers they will receive those tickets exactly as promised. Tickets cannot be listed on GET ME IN! until they have been made available to purchase through primary sales channels, unlike other sites which list tickets for events which are not yet on sale. There are no price caps on GET ME IN!, nor are there any price minimums; in fact, tickets to see a number of popular artists in 2010 have sold for average prices below the original face values. Less than 10% of those tickets listed for resale on GET ME IN! are actually resold and the price for these tickets can be significantly lower than the price at which they were originally listed.
We would stress that Ticketmaster never diverts tickets allocated to it for sale at face value to GET ME IN! and all such tickets are priced and sold through Ticketmaster, as stipulated by the event organiser. The vast majority of tickets are sold at face value to fans who attend the event. Ticketmaster is working with its clients on a number of initiatives to further manage the activities of the secondary market.
We would always advise consumers to go to primary sites first and to sign-up for email alerts about their favourite artists and events to keep up to date with when tickets are going on sale. They should also come back to primary sites after the general sale date because more ticket inventory can be release by event organisers at a later date. Consumers should also use the main established resale sites for the best protection against fraud.
Questions
1. Why does Ticketmaster allow tickets to be resold through getmein.com but not other sites like eBay? Why isn't reselling tickets through getmein.com considered a breach of the tickets terms and conditions?
In the conversation with our customer service agent, it was stated that if you decided to list your tickets on eBay it may be cancelled, they did not say it was wrong to list it on the site. We acknowledge that the customer service agent was incorrect in making this specific distinction between GET ME IN! and eBay and will be reviewing our customer service messaging and agent training.
For clarification, the potential cancelling of tickets is always done at the discretion of the event organiser, regardless of which site they are listed on, whether that is GET ME IN! or any other secondary market site.
2. If getmein.com considers itself to be a 'fan-to-fan' resale site, why are some tickets appearing on getmein.com within minutes of them being made available through a fanclub pre-sale? Does Ticketmaster believe that fanclub members would change their minds about attending a concert that quickly?
The Internet has radically changed how tickets are now sold, with major arena shows now selling out in minutes. It is a common situation for fans to see tickets listed on resale sites within minutes of them having gone on sale.
Pre-sales to closed, but extensive users groups such as fan clubs and sponsors have now become a regular part of the ticket sales process. A significant number of tickets are now sold through these pre-sales with the result that many of the best tickets are often sold before they are made available to the wider public.
We consider that the sellers that offer tickets on resale sites, such as GET ME IN!, can be broken down into three broad categories:
- Organised sellers that buy tickets from a variety of ticket agencies and venues. These resellers list their tickets on multiple resale sites.
- The fan who buys more tickets than they actually intend to use and then resell their additional tickets to fund their own purchase and to make a profit.
- The fan whose circumstances or preferences change and they use resale sites to exchange their tickets.
The majority of tickets that are listed on resale sites are listed by the first two categories.
Once GET ME IN! is aware that tickets have been made available through a presale, it will allow sellers to list tickets. However, unlike other sites, GET ME IN! will not allow speculative listings, which means sellers offering tickets for sale before they could possibly have been purchased.
GET ME IN! also undertakes a number of checks to ensure that a seller has the ticket they are listing for resale.
3. Beyond restricting each buyer to a maximum of six tickets, does Ticketmaster carry out any checks to ensure that touts are not abusing getmein.com by buying tickets in bulk and then reselling them at a huge profit? If yes, why did we find so many for sale on getmein.com within minutes of them being offered at face value through Ticketmaster.co.uk?
Firstly, it is important to note that there are a number of places to purchase tickets from the primary market, Even for those venues for which Ticketmaster is the preferred ticketing partner, Ticketmaster does not exclusively sell tickets and the event organiser allocates their tickets to multiple agencies and are available via the venue's box office. For many events, Ticketmaster has a very limited allocation and therefore resellers can secure their tickets from a wide range of outlets.
Ticketmaster accepts that as the leading ticket agency one of its core responsibilities is to offer as many genuine fans as possible the opportunity to buy tickets to the event. There are a number of initiatives which we currently undertake to achieve this objective:
Ticket limits:
The ticket limit per event, which is the number of tickets that can be purchased by any one person at a time, is stipulated to Ticketmaster by the event organiser. This limit normally ranges between 2 and 8 tickets per person.
Ticketmaster undertakes regular checks, especially for high profile high demand events, to identify any obvious multiple bookings. If a multiple booking is identified, any excess tickets are cancelled and the tickets reoffered for sale though Ticketmaster.
When requested by an event organiser, Ticketmaster will also make even deeper checks, looking for multiple booking by credit/debit cards; bookings from the same postal address or even from the same IP address.
Prevention of bulk and automated bookings:
When a customers buys tickets through Ticketmaster.co.uk they will experience the ReCaptcha technology online which prevents automated systems purchasing bulk numbers of tickets.
Paperless Ticketing:
Where a venue or promoter wishes to try and completely eliminate any resale market activity , Ticketmaster can put in place our Paperless Ticketing solution. This means the individual who purchases the tickets must arrive at the venue with the actual credit/debit card used to buy the tickets to gain entry to the venue.
This solution has been implemented successfully by Ticketmaster most recently for a showcase concert by The Libertines at The Forum in London and Arcade Fire at the Hackney Empire.
The lack of access control at many venues means that this solution cannot currently be adopted more widely, however, Ticketmaster believes that linking the identity of the original ticket purchaser to the means of entry, be that their mobile phone, travel card or credit card could become an increasingly common method of preventing resale.
Platinum Tickets and Auctions:
Another response to the rapidly emerging secondary market in entertainment tickets could be the introduction of dynamic pricing, where the market decides the ticket price. Ticketmaster already adopts Platinum Tickets as one such initiative. Some event organisers allocate a limited number of the best tickets available for a high profile event for sale through Ticketmaster, and sometimes GET ME IN!, has official Platinum Tickets priced at a market value. These tickets are gradually released for sale from the on sale date to the day of the event, offering those customers looking to buy the best tickets at a market rate, the option of purchasing from a site offering full consumer protection.
The other key positive about this initiative is that any incremental revenue is driven back to the event organiser and ultimately back into the UK's entertainment industry, rather than going to unrelated parties in the secondary market.
Similarly, Ticketmaster also offers event organisers the chance to run ticket auctions in order to maximise the revenue generated from an event, many of which are in support of charitable organisations.
4. Does Ticketmaster issue penalties to sellers suspected of being professional touts? If yes, when was the last time a seller was penalised and how many penalties have been issued to date?
GET ME IN! puts in place a number of measures to ensure consumers are protected. If a seller fails to deliver the tickets they advertised there are penalties and the buyer receives back 150% of the money they spent. Sellers that advertise tickets they cannot deliver are blocked and banned from using the site. By Ticketmaster and GET ME IN! working together we're trying to deliver greater transparency and protection and improve standards in the resale market
5. Did getmein.com donate any of the profit made through the resale of Help for Heroes tickets to charity? If so, how much?
GET ME IN!'s charity events policy is that where an event is put on to raise money for charity, we donate a proportion of the fees from any sales to the charity. The fees GET ME IN! charge are proportional reflective of the final sale price and are 10% to the seller and 15% to the buyer. These fees are transparently shown within the booking process and are in line with other resale sites. The postage and packing charges reflect the secure delivery methods GET ME IN! use to ensure tickets are delivered to the buyer.
It is worth noting that initially GET ME IN! agreed not to list any tickets for this event, however as other sites continued to list, it was decided to allow listings. Similarly, GET ME IN! has made donations to the Teenage Cancer Trust and the National Aids Trust in relation to charity events in the past. These donations represent purely incremental income for the charities involved. In the specific case of Help for Heroes, we agreed to donate 25% of the fees, which equated to approximately £3,500.
6. Does Ticketmaster accept that true fans are missing out on face value tickets because of sites like getmein.com?
Ticketmaster's number one objective is to sell as many tickets to fans as possible and to help event organisers sell their tickets, which in turn results in more concerts, more tickets and a greater opportunity for more fans to attend. The vast majority of tickets which are bought by fans through Ticketmaster, other ticket agencies and box offices are bought by fans who intend to go to the event themselves.
However event organisers are increasingly working with sites like Viagogo, Seatwave and GET ME IN! to offer a market based solution to the UK resale market. GET ME IN! is one of a number of recognised resale sites across the UK. A search for tickets through Google for your favourite artists will list hundreds and hundreds of sites offering tickets. However, many of these sites offer music fans little or no information on the quality or location of these tickets.
The secondary market is driven by the principles of supply and demand and market forces dictating a market price for a limited number of tickets. We do not believe that legislation to ban the reselling of tickets will prevent this market from existing and it could potentially drive the practice further underground and compromise consumer protection. Many consumers have demonstrated their willingness to pay a market price for tickets.
The vast majority of tickets for live events are sold at face value to fans that attend the event themselves
7. How many tickets were released in the 02 priority presale for Westlife's concert at the London O2 Arena on 11 Mar 2011 by 7 Sept 2010? How many tickets were released in the fanclub presale for Kylie Minogue's concert at the London O2 Arena on 7 Apr 2011 by 13 Sept 2010?
We are unable to comment on this due to our contractual agreements with our clients, whose tickets we are selling.
We have looked into the events highlighted by your researchers and to offer you some perspective on the actual number of tickets being sold through GET ME IN!, for these events it was less than 3% of the total number of tickets sold by Ticketmaster. As Ticketmaster is one of a number of agencies selling tickets for these events, the actual percentage of total tickets sold for the event will be even lower. Similarly the price at which tickets are actually sold through sites like GET ME IN! can differ significantly from the price at which they may have been originally listed. For example you identified that tickets for Sting's concert at the MEN, Manchester were being listed at some stage on GET ME IN! for £1,200, when in fact the average resale price for this concert was actually close to face value. The actual price paid is determined by availability within the primary market and what the consumer is willing to pay.
Only 10% of the tickets listed on GET ME IN! are actually sold as many of these tickets are also listed on other resale sites.
Tick-ed off with Ticket master?
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This profiteering isn't happening on any random auction site. It's actually happening on Ticketmaster's own partner site, Getmein.com. And for every ticket that's resold there, Getmein take a sizable percentage.
Watchdog wanted to see how quickly tickets sold through Ticketmaster appeared on Getmein. We knew that the first tickets to James Blunt's forthcoming tour were going on sale at 9am on 22nd September, so on that morning our researchers set up two computers. One was logged on to the Ticketmaster pre-sale site, the other, getmein.com.
For an hour, our researcher kept trying to buy a ticket through Ticketmaster, but the site just kept saying none was available. However, in less than half an hour, tickets to the concert were appearing on getmein.com. The most expensive one was a £30 seat, listed for almost £150. It appeared that some people were buying up tickets with just one intention; to make a profit.
Ticket touts have always been with us, the difference is now they don't have to operate on street corners anymore. Ticketmaster, through its subsidiary website Getmein, is giving them the means to do it from the comfort of their own homes. And Getmein make a tidy profit in the process.
Ticketmaster's an American company that's grown by paying to become the main provider of tickets for live events. It now sells around 150 million tickets in 20 different countries each year. Not just for popular music shows, but classical concerts, stand-up acts and some of the biggest international sporting events. But it's pop and rock artists that attract the biggest trade.
We met Barbara Cowlard, a lifelong Rod Stewart fan who has been to many of his concerts spanning the last four decades. When new 2010 UK tour dates at the London O2 arena were announced, Barbara made special arrangements to come in late at work to ensure she was ready to buy tickets the morning that they went on sale in late November 2009. Despite being ready with phone and laptop the moment they went on sale, within minutes she found that all of the seats had been sold, apart from less desirable tickets high up and at the back of the stadium. Within 20 minutes though, she found plenty of tickets for sale on Getmein and other secondary ticketing sites priced at 3 or 4 times the face value.
Barbara was dismayed, but didn't give up. When two further tour dates were announced, she tried again. But each time, she faced the same problem. Naturally, Barbara was very upset:
"I was positively tearful, which is not like me at all. But I was so angry that they were doing this to fans. That the fans couldn't get the tickets that they wanted unless they were prepared to spend an exorbitant amount."
Ticketmaster say their Getmein site is a marketplace where genuine fans can buy unwanted tickets at a fair price. It says it's preferable to fans having to deal with touts. But if it's allowing people to re-sell tickets within seconds of buying them, at massively inflated prices, what's the difference? And what's the company doing to stop them? Not enough - there's absolutely nothing to stop you buying your ticket on Ticketmaster or any other site, and then listing it straight away on Getmein.com for whatever price you choose. There's no cap on the prices that can be charged.
Although Ticketmaster does limit the number of tickets any one person can buy, the problem persists. We found a Sting ticket priced at an unbelievable £1,208. A top ticket to see opera singer Andrea Bocelli could set you back £1760, and if you wanted one of the best seats for Kylie Minogue's upcoming tour, you could pay 16 times face value at £1868.90. And because Getmein takes a percentage, the more these tickets sell for, the more money it makes them.
But Getmein were also prepared to allow a trade in tickets to the charity concert 'Help for Heroes' at Twickenham in September. Tom Jones, Pixie Lott and Robbie all performed for free at the event, but hundreds of people were listing tickets to the concert on Getmein with a sizable mark-up. They stood to make a profit, as did Getmein who generally take 10% on the list price, and another 15% when the transaction is completed. Getmein say that they donated a proportion of their fees from the re-sale of Help for Heroes tickets to the charity.
The 'Help for Heroes' concert was staged by entertainment company Live Nation, a company that merged with Ticketmaster earlier this year. But the terms and conditions on the back of the Live Nation Help for Heroes tickets state that you are not permitted to resell them in the course of business or for a profit. Because we found this confusing, we called Ticketmaster, posing as a customer, and they told us that we could sell the ticket for a profit on Getmein for example, but if a Ticketmaster ticket was found on Ebay, and priced excessively, it could be cancelled.
So, Live Nation, a company that's merged with Ticketmaster says you can't re-sell the 'Help for Heroes' tickets for a profit, yet Getmein, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ticketmaster gives customers the means to do just that. But you can't sell the ticket for a profit on Ebay. Not exactly a consistent policy!
Of course, there's nothing illegal in what Getmein or Ticketmaster are doing, and people are perfectly free to resell as many concert tickets as they want for as much as they like. Secondary ticket sites clearly have a purpose, especially if you have a ticket you can no longer make use of. But if tickets are being purchased by some, solely to be re-sold immediately, aren't true fans losing out?
Watchdog asked the artists whose concert tickets were being resold for a profit on Getmein for their views.
Dave Chumbley, Kylie Mingogue's Live agent:
"You've told me that 527 Kylie tickets were already on sale on Getmein before they'd been sold on general release - itt is a lot more than I would have liked. It is in the culture I'm afraid, because unlike, say Denmark, the [British] government have not made the reselling of tickets illegal. For good or bad reasons, people are entitled to resell the tickets.
"My view is, in a perfect world, I would prefer it if tickets could not be resold in the way they are allowed to now. The people re-selling them, it's not because they've got a cold and cannot attend the performance, because the show's are not for five months. The fact is, that the artist, people like myself (agents) and the promoters spend a lot of time trying define what is the fairest and the right price for tickets. For us to put a ticket on sale one day, after agonising over this, for someone else to make more money out of the ticket than the artists does seems wrong. The simple fact is, we are dealing with an imperfect situation."
James Blunt:
"It's with huge dismay that every time I organise special pre-sales for my core fans, I see established ticket agents enabling scalpers to pluck the best seats and stick them up on eBay or other random ticket websites at ridiculous prices, ripping off the very people the likes of Ticketmaster say they're looking after."
Bryn Parry OBE, CEO & Co Founder, Help for Heroes:
"The Heroes Concert was organised by Live Nation, the largest live entertainment company in the world, in support of Help for Heroes.
"Therefore, the ticketing was also managed by Live Nation and Help For Heroes had no control over this, aside from asking those booking tickets to consider also buying one for a member of the Armed Forces. The terms on the ticket are those agreed by Live Nation and Ticketmaster, to minimize those bought and sold to make a profit.
"Over 200 tickets were generously purchased for troops by the public through the Treat a Troop initiative and another 200 were bought for injured service personnel by an anonymous donor.
"Help for Heroes is clearly disappointed that some members of the public sought to make a profit from tickets for a concert organised to raise money for injured servicemen and women. The concert was a huge success and helped raise nearly a £1m for our wounded boys and girls and was broadcast live on BBC 1 to an audience of over 6m."
Ticketmaster sent a response to the issues raised in our programme:
We do acknowledge that the issue of ticket availability and the resale market are often highly complex and emotive consumer issues.
Statement of Response:
We were disappointed to hear that Barbara Cowlard was unable to get the tickets she wanted for Rod Stewart through Ticketmaster. As with all popular artists the demand for tickets often outstrips supply and the rate of sale can also be affected by the number of pre-sales to fan clubs and priority sponsor groups, which means that the original availability of tickets is greatly reduced when tickets go on sale to the general public.
The ticket resale market, driven by the supply and demand for live events tickets, has always existed. However, the internet has enabled the number of ticket resale sites to increase massively over the past 5 years and as illustrated by BBC Watchdog reports in September 2005, October 2005, January 2007 and March 2009, some of these sites have fraudulently capitalised on consumer demand for live entertainment tickets.
Last year the DCMS Select Committee investigated the UK resale market and concluded that the entertainment industry needed to offer a market based solution for the legitimate resale of tickets. Ticketmaster purchased GET ME IN! primarily to provide Ticketmaster customers with a safer option for purchasing tickets in the resale market, if they so choose.
GET ME IN!'s buyer guarantee ensures that when consumers purchase tickets listed by sellers they will receive those tickets exactly as promised. Tickets cannot be listed on GET ME IN! until they have been made available to purchase through primary sales channels, unlike other sites which list tickets for events which are not yet on sale. There are no price caps on GET ME IN!, nor are there any price minimums; in fact, tickets to see a number of popular artists in 2010 have sold for average prices below the original face values. Less than 10% of those tickets listed for resale on GET ME IN! are actually resold and the price for these tickets can be significantly lower than the price at which they were originally listed.
We would stress that Ticketmaster never diverts tickets allocated to it for sale at face value to GET ME IN! and all such tickets are priced and sold through Ticketmaster, as stipulated by the event organiser. The vast majority of tickets are sold at face value to fans who attend the event. Ticketmaster is working with its clients on a number of initiatives to further manage the activities of the secondary market.
We would always advise consumers to go to primary sites first and to sign-up for email alerts about their favourite artists and events to keep up to date with when tickets are going on sale. They should also come back to primary sites after the general sale date because more ticket inventory can be release by event organisers at a later date. Consumers should also use the main established resale sites for the best protection against fraud.
Questions
1. Why does Ticketmaster allow tickets to be resold through getmein.com but not other sites like eBay? Why isn't reselling tickets through getmein.com considered a breach of the tickets terms and conditions?
In the conversation with our customer service agent, it was stated that if you decided to list your tickets on eBay it may be cancelled, they did not say it was wrong to list it on the site. We acknowledge that the customer service agent was incorrect in making this specific distinction between GET ME IN! and eBay and will be reviewing our customer service messaging and agent training.
For clarification, the potential cancelling of tickets is always done at the discretion of the event organiser, regardless of which site they are listed on, whether that is GET ME IN! or any other secondary market site.
2. If getmein.com considers itself to be a 'fan-to-fan' resale site, why are some tickets appearing on getmein.com within minutes of them being made available through a fanclub pre-sale? Does Ticketmaster believe that fanclub members would change their minds about attending a concert that quickly?
The Internet has radically changed how tickets are now sold, with major arena shows now selling out in minutes. It is a common situation for fans to see tickets listed on resale sites within minutes of them having gone on sale.
Pre-sales to closed, but extensive users groups such as fan clubs and sponsors have now become a regular part of the ticket sales process. A significant number of tickets are now sold through these pre-sales with the result that many of the best tickets are often sold before they are made available to the wider public.
We consider that the sellers that offer tickets on resale sites, such as GET ME IN!, can be broken down into three broad categories:
- Organised sellers that buy tickets from a variety of ticket agencies and venues. These resellers list their tickets on multiple resale sites.
- The fan who buys more tickets than they actually intend to use and then resell their additional tickets to fund their own purchase and to make a profit.
- The fan whose circumstances or preferences change and they use resale sites to exchange their tickets.
The majority of tickets that are listed on resale sites are listed by the first two categories.
Once GET ME IN! is aware that tickets have been made available through a presale, it will allow sellers to list tickets. However, unlike other sites, GET ME IN! will not allow speculative listings, which means sellers offering tickets for sale before they could possibly have been purchased.
GET ME IN! also undertakes a number of checks to ensure that a seller has the ticket they are listing for resale.
3. Beyond restricting each buyer to a maximum of six tickets, does Ticketmaster carry out any checks to ensure that touts are not abusing getmein.com by buying tickets in bulk and then reselling them at a huge profit? If yes, why did we find so many for sale on getmein.com within minutes of them being offered at face value through Ticketmaster.co.uk?
Firstly, it is important to note that there are a number of places to purchase tickets from the primary market, Even for those venues for which Ticketmaster is the preferred ticketing partner, Ticketmaster does not exclusively sell tickets and the event organiser allocates their tickets to multiple agencies and are available via the venue's box office. For many events, Ticketmaster has a very limited allocation and therefore resellers can secure their tickets from a wide range of outlets.
Ticketmaster accepts that as the leading ticket agency one of its core responsibilities is to offer as many genuine fans as possible the opportunity to buy tickets to the event. There are a number of initiatives which we currently undertake to achieve this objective:
Ticket limits:
The ticket limit per event, which is the number of tickets that can be purchased by any one person at a time, is stipulated to Ticketmaster by the event organiser. This limit normally ranges between 2 and 8 tickets per person.
Ticketmaster undertakes regular checks, especially for high profile high demand events, to identify any obvious multiple bookings. If a multiple booking is identified, any excess tickets are cancelled and the tickets reoffered for sale though Ticketmaster.
When requested by an event organiser, Ticketmaster will also make even deeper checks, looking for multiple booking by credit/debit cards; bookings from the same postal address or even from the same IP address.
Prevention of bulk and automated bookings:
When a customers buys tickets through Ticketmaster.co.uk they will experience the ReCaptcha technology online which prevents automated systems purchasing bulk numbers of tickets.
Paperless Ticketing:
Where a venue or promoter wishes to try and completely eliminate any resale market activity , Ticketmaster can put in place our Paperless Ticketing solution. This means the individual who purchases the tickets must arrive at the venue with the actual credit/debit card used to buy the tickets to gain entry to the venue.
This solution has been implemented successfully by Ticketmaster most recently for a showcase concert by The Libertines at The Forum in London and Arcade Fire at the Hackney Empire.
The lack of access control at many venues means that this solution cannot currently be adopted more widely, however, Ticketmaster believes that linking the identity of the original ticket purchaser to the means of entry, be that their mobile phone, travel card or credit card could become an increasingly common method of preventing resale.
Platinum Tickets and Auctions:
Another response to the rapidly emerging secondary market in entertainment tickets could be the introduction of dynamic pricing, where the market decides the ticket price. Ticketmaster already adopts Platinum Tickets as one such initiative. Some event organisers allocate a limited number of the best tickets available for a high profile event for sale through Ticketmaster, and sometimes GET ME IN!, has official Platinum Tickets priced at a market value. These tickets are gradually released for sale from the on sale date to the day of the event, offering those customers looking to buy the best tickets at a market rate, the option of purchasing from a site offering full consumer protection.
The other key positive about this initiative is that any incremental revenue is driven back to the event organiser and ultimately back into the UK's entertainment industry, rather than going to unrelated parties in the secondary market.
Similarly, Ticketmaster also offers event organisers the chance to run ticket auctions in order to maximise the revenue generated from an event, many of which are in support of charitable organisations.
4. Does Ticketmaster issue penalties to sellers suspected of being professional touts? If yes, when was the last time a seller was penalised and how many penalties have been issued to date?
GET ME IN! puts in place a number of measures to ensure consumers are protected. If a seller fails to deliver the tickets they advertised there are penalties and the buyer receives back 150% of the money they spent. Sellers that advertise tickets they cannot deliver are blocked and banned from using the site. By Ticketmaster and GET ME IN! working together we're trying to deliver greater transparency and protection and improve standards in the resale market
5. Did getmein.com donate any of the profit made through the resale of Help for Heroes tickets to charity? If so, how much?
GET ME IN!'s charity events policy is that where an event is put on to raise money for charity, we donate a proportion of the fees from any sales to the charity. The fees GET ME IN! charge are proportional reflective of the final sale price and are 10% to the seller and 15% to the buyer. These fees are transparently shown within the booking process and are in line with other resale sites. The postage and packing charges reflect the secure delivery methods GET ME IN! use to ensure tickets are delivered to the buyer.
It is worth noting that initially GET ME IN! agreed not to list any tickets for this event, however as other sites continued to list, it was decided to allow listings. Similarly, GET ME IN! has made donations to the Teenage Cancer Trust and the National Aids Trust in relation to charity events in the past. These donations represent purely incremental income for the charities involved. In the specific case of Help for Heroes, we agreed to donate 25% of the fees, which equated to approximately £3,500.
6. Does Ticketmaster accept that true fans are missing out on face value tickets because of sites like getmein.com?
Ticketmaster's number one objective is to sell as many tickets to fans as possible and to help event organisers sell their tickets, which in turn results in more concerts, more tickets and a greater opportunity for more fans to attend. The vast majority of tickets which are bought by fans through Ticketmaster, other ticket agencies and box offices are bought by fans who intend to go to the event themselves.
However event organisers are increasingly working with sites like Viagogo, Seatwave and GET ME IN! to offer a market based solution to the UK resale market. GET ME IN! is one of a number of recognised resale sites across the UK. A search for tickets through Google for your favourite artists will list hundreds and hundreds of sites offering tickets. However, many of these sites offer music fans little or no information on the quality or location of these tickets.
The secondary market is driven by the principles of supply and demand and market forces dictating a market price for a limited number of tickets. We do not believe that legislation to ban the reselling of tickets will prevent this market from existing and it could potentially drive the practice further underground and compromise consumer protection. Many consumers have demonstrated their willingness to pay a market price for tickets.
The vast majority of tickets for live events are sold at face value to fans that attend the event themselves
7. How many tickets were released in the 02 priority presale for Westlife's concert at the London O2 Arena on 11 Mar 2011 by 7 Sept 2010? How many tickets were released in the fanclub presale for Kylie Minogue's concert at the London O2 Arena on 7 Apr 2011 by 13 Sept 2010?
We are unable to comment on this due to our contractual agreements with our clients, whose tickets we are selling.
We have looked into the events highlighted by your researchers and to offer you some perspective on the actual number of tickets being sold through GET ME IN!, for these events it was less than 3% of the total number of tickets sold by Ticketmaster. As Ticketmaster is one of a number of agencies selling tickets for these events, the actual percentage of total tickets sold for the event will be even lower. Similarly the price at which tickets are actually sold through sites like GET ME IN! can differ significantly from the price at which they may have been originally listed. For example you identified that tickets for Sting's concert at the MEN, Manchester were being listed at some stage on GET ME IN! for £1,200, when in fact the average resale price for this concert was actually close to face value. The actual price paid is determined by availability within the primary market and what the consumer is willing to pay.
Only 10% of the tickets listed on GET ME IN! are actually sold as many of these tickets are also listed on other resale sites.
Tick-ed off with Ticket master?
I am fuming and feeling totally ripped off.