Nick Smith
Main Page: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to regulate the selling of tickets for certain sporting and cultural events; and for connected purposes.
The Bill I am proposing today speaks to anyone who has loved something enough to want to see it live. For me, that is rugby. In 2015, this country will host the rugby world cup, one of the premier events in the sporting calendar. On the field, our teams will be doing their best to bring the cup to these shores, but who will be cheering them on from the stands? In an ideal world, the most committed fans will be rewarded with a chance to see a once-in-a-lifetime event—Wales becoming rugby world cup champions.
Many fans will be forced to pay sky-high prices in a rigged secondary market. I used to believe that ticket buying was a fair lottery where a quick phone call or a mouse click would give someone the chance to see their heroes. Unfortunately, all too often the true fans do not stand a chance. The touts have evolved from blokes in sheepskin jackets lurking outside stadiums trying to sell spare tickets to sophisticated people, harvesting thousands of tickets just seconds after they go on sale. These people have been described as power sellers. Using multiple credit cards and sometimes computer programmes called “botnets”, they are able to make thousands of attempts to get tickets each second, manipulating the market and claiming large pools of tickets.
This is a story that has been repeated across the country. Monty Python fans discovered that just three months ago. The much-anticipated comeback show sold out in 43.5 seconds. In 2012, the Rolling Stones attacked secondary sites after sky-high prices—up to £1,300 a ticket—meant that their 50th anniversary tour was littered with empty seats. Even the Chelsea Flower Show is not immune. Prince Harry’s attendance in 2013 saw record ticket sales, with £22 tickets going for as much as £466.
This Bill calls for two things. The rugby world cup should be designated an event of national significance, and it should be illegal to resell tickets for profit. For all other events, there should be a cap on the amount for which a ticket can be resold. We are letting down the fans by not giving them a chance of a fair deal. We must call time out, and stop new internet spivs fleecing honest fans.
To see what sort of prices the secondary sites command, I took a look at the prices for a rugby world cup game that I will be watching with great interest—Wales’ victory over England. Tickets are not even on sale yet, although the organisers have said that they will range from £75 for the cheaper seats to £315. However, a quick search on Google turned up a range of prominent secondary sites already offering tickets at prices ranging from £920 to £1,725. That kind of ticket touting is parasitic. It leeches off fans who are desperate to see their heroes and organisations that are charging fair prices.
The Rugby Football Union tells me that it puts every penny earned back into the game. It has ambitions to grow the sport as part of the rugby world cup legacy, just as the Olympics inspired our next generation of superstars. However, these grossly inflated ticket prices will not result in a single extra ball for a school's kit bag.
I have heard the argument that resales do not cost the event organisers a penny, as they have already earned the face value of the ticket. That could not be further from the truth. Kilimanjaro Live, an events promotion company, estimates its costs of policing resale of tickets to be more than £100,000 a year. The National Theatre spends tens of thousands a year, as does the RFU. The misleading nature of online ticket touting means that many people buy tickets believing that they are coming from fellow fans. The first web page they come to may be a secondary sales site and the uninitiated could believe that they are buying from the only outlet or paying a fair price, when really they are being ripped off. Unfortunately, despite evidence of touting in the secondary market, the Government refuse to designate the rugby world cup 2015 as a competition of national significance as was done for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games.
Designating the games in such a way would make it illegal to resell tickets for the tournament. It is urgent that the Government act to protect genuine rugby fans from being exploited by online rip-off merchants. Tickets for the rugby world cup 2015 will be sent to rugby clubs in May and go on general sale this autumn. Even at this late stage, if the Government were to bring forward legislation to make the rugby world cup an event of national significance, Labour would give them their support.
Before I finish I would like to place on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and other colleagues in the all-party group on ticket abuse who are showing important leadership on consumer rights. Our concerns include the business practices by companies such as Viagogo. Just last night I pressed it on its supply of tickets from the power sellers and the public selling tickets they cannot use. Answer came there none. We are also concerned that the secondary market and its exorbitant prices are the only game in town thanks to mass ticket touting, and that there are links to organised crime as identified by police Operation Podium.
Like my hon. Friend, I believe we can only address the industrial ripping off of consumers with regulation. To deal with the power sellers, resale prices should be capped at say 10% or 20% of face value. Although that needs further discussion, our overall objective must be fairness to fans.
Fans need to know that they can buy a ticket in confidence without being gouged financially. When it comes to nationally significant events such as the rugby world cup, fans also need to know that if they cannot attend the event, they can sell their ticket back to the organisers and recoup the cost. The Bill would not stifle the right of the genuine fan to buy and sell tickets for most events at a fair price when they can no longer attend. Instead, real fans would get back the first-come, first-served fairness of buying direct. They would be protected from internet chicanery that is crowding them out and ripping them off. We need to end the market manipulation of sporting and cultural events in this country.