Touts, and ordinary consumers, will no longer be able to charge anything more than price at which they bought ticket

Touts, and ordinary consumers, will no longer be able to charge anything more than price at which they bought ticket

Reselling tickets for profit is to be outlawed under plans due to be announced this week, the Guardian has learned, as the government goes ahead with a long-awaited crackdown on touts and resale platforms such as Viagogo and StubHub.

Ministers had been considering allowing touts – and ordinary consumers – to sell on a ticket for up to 30% above the original face value, as part of a consultation process that ended earlier this year.

However, the Guardian understands that reselling a ticket at anything more than the price at which it was originally bought will be banned.

    • 9point6@lemmy.worldEnglish
      171·
      19 hours ago

      Honestly I don’t see the issue with this as it’s reported.

      It’s not banning resale, it’s just banning resale for profit.

      The only real downside I can see is the people who were actually paying the crazy tout prices will have to be more organised and get the tickets when they are released, since I imagine the touting will be significantly reduced (some people will still break the law) if there’s no profit to be had.

      I’m curious as to what you think the issues might be

      • ideonek@piefed.socialEnglish
        19·
        17 hours ago

        The problem is that tickets for popular artis - in general - are sold for the fraction of the actual market price. There would be enough people ready to pay 10x 20x 100x … but the artist is not “allowed” to put that price on the ticket for PR reason. He would be labeled as greedy or not a real artist. They are leaving money on the table. The inefficiencies in the ticket distributions are not accidental. Many of those are there on purpose as a way to take back some of those money - often by people and processes connected with the artist. A way to [re]sell some tickets for their [real] price.

        The objective truth is that a venue sell tickets way below their value. How do you close that gap?

        Raising the price of tickets SIGNIFICANTLY? Even there, there is a “moral” cap to how high you can raise those.

        So the demand crushes the supply. And 2nd hand can’t close the gap. What do you do then? Lottery? Ticket only to the fastest? For people with the best connection (personal or internet)? It can’t last forever because there are people ready to buy and people ready to sell. It’ll come some fiction like “I sell a ticket for it market value, paired with this drawing of Taylor Swift I did for $1000. It’s a set” Or “I pay you to buy me a ticket - I’m too busy to do it. I’ll cover the price and your <<work>> of obtaining it separately”

        The problem is complex, and in the root of it is that those tickets are simply worth more. I may not be explaining it well, but Freekonomiks have a great episode about it if you’re a podcast fan.