Ticket Abuse
Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Clive Efford(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Mrs Hodgson
It should be enforced in the same way as we enforced the regulations on Olympics ticketing. Tickets could be sold abroad under different rules, but the number of tickets held here that had to go to UK fans had to follow UK legislation and the laws that we made.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that if the details of tickets were provided to the organising body and they were being sold illegally, it could then cancel them? That information would be important in enforcing the proposal.
Mrs Hodgson
My hon. Friend is right. That already happens with some events, including those at the O2. If a ticket is found to have been resold illegally and can be traced, it can be cancelled. That is one mechanism that can be used. My proposal would give consumers the peace of mind that they will not be left out of pocket if they are the victim of ticket fraud. The websites that make money facilitating ticket touting say they currently aim to make that happen now, so I hope that my proposal will not be considered too much of a stretch.
To bring to the market the much-needed transparency that the police and many others say is needed, the websites should ensure that all ticket listings display the face value and seat number, where appropriate, of the tickets being purchased. That would prove that the tickets were real and already in existence. Websites selling tickets they have acquired themselves, or through direct allocations from an event holder, should disclose that clearly to buyers, and individuals selling tickets via these websites should be able to provide proof that they own the ticket they are selling.
EBay was probably the original platform for web-based touts. The main websites these days could learn a lot from the information about a seller that it allows to be seen. EBay no longer allows tickets to be sold; that part of its activity has been moved to StubHub, through which it makes commission from the buyer and seller. However, providing information could still apply to other listings, so that the number of tickets sold to other events, the number currently for sale, feedback from previous purchasers, and the record of any previous accounts held by the individual when possible could be detailed. That would allow consumers to make an informed choice about whether to buy from a tout who sells hundreds of tickets, or from a genuine fan who is selling tickets because they cannot go to the gig or event.
There is a serious problem with how some touts acquire tickets through the use of botnets and sophisticated software programmes to circumvent restrictions placed on sales by primary ticketing websites, but that is arguably more a case of detection and properly enforcing existing laws and regulations, rather than making new ones.
The secondary websites have a role to play in questioning the legality of the methods employed by their power sellers to acquire the vast inventories that some of them have. I hope that that will be explored more during the APPG’s inquiry.
I have given the Minister and the other Members here a lot to think about this afternoon, but I hope she will try to respond to as many of the different points as possible. If she cannot, I hope she will simply tell the House whether she thinks her Government should carry on entrenching and exacerbating the situation. Even the chair of the Association of Secondary Ticketing Agents admits that
“the ordinary fan is screwed. The decks are stacked against them.”
Please do not say that the previous Government and the Select Committee looked at this issue years ago, so it is all okay. I have spent the past 30 minutes explaining why that just does not wash any more and why everything that has happened in the past six years shows that the wrong decisions were made.
I could have spent much longer speaking, but I will not. I have had lots of material sent to me over the past few years, which I will present to Parliament in due course to back up the case. If, as I hope, the Minister does not want her Government to reach the end of their tenure having made the same mistakes, I will be delighted to work with her and colleagues from all parts of the House to come up with a solution that tips the balance back in favour of the fans.
As I have said before in debates on this subject, tickets give access to an experience—sometimes, a once-in-a-lifetime experience—and the normal market rules of supply and demand do not apply. The tickets should not go just to those with the deepest pockets, access to back-channel deals or criminal methods of acquiring them, unless that is what the person putting on the event wants. The Government’s job is to legislate to prevent such market failure and to ensure as far as possible that everyone has a fair and equal chance of purchasing a ticket to their dream event, at the price those putting on the event intended.