UK poised to Ban Predatory Ticket Resale as US drags its feet

Unlike US legislators, who are dragging their feet on comprehensive reform, the UK appears poised to move forward with substantive restrictions on predatory ticket resale.

UK poised to Ban Predatory Ticket Resale as US drags its feet

In a major blow to resellers like Viagogo and StubHub, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said for the first time that it will push for 10% cap on “secondary” ticket prices. Most major music groups back the change.

The move would effectively make running a major secondary ticket operation unprofitable in the UK.

In the US, where the shift to Republican control changed the political landscape, secondary ticketing companies ramped up massive lobbying efforts to slow or neuter most efforts by NIVA, NITO, the Fix The Tix Coalition and other music industry groups to push for meaningful federal reform.

StubHub acknowledges threat

In last week’s US IPO filing, StubHub acknowledged the dangers ahead:

“Complying with this new set of regulations could result in increased costs and additional liabilities. Additionally, artists, teams and promoters may attempt to disrupt the secondary ticketing market through lobbying for such restrictions regarding secondary ticketing policies or partnering with other secondary ticketing marketplaces on an exclusive basis,” according to Sub Hub’s S-1 filing.

“Our failure to comply with these laws and regulations could result in fines and/or proceedings against us by governmental agencies and/or consumers, which, if material, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations,” concluded the filing.

Ticketmaster Oasis sale “breached consumer protection law”

The UK’s CMA also signalled its concern that Ticketmaster, which sold more than 900,000 tickets during the Oasis ticket sale, “may have breached consumer protection law” by:

• “Labelling certain seated tickets as ‘platinum’ and selling them for near 2.5 times the price of equivalent standard tickets, without sufficiently explaining that they did not offer additional benefits and were often located in the same area of the stadium. This risked giving consumers the misleading impression that platinum tickets were better.”
• “Not informing consumers that there were two categories of standing tickets at different prices, with all of the cheaper standing tickets sold first before the more expensive standing tickets were released, resulting in many fans waiting in a lengthy queue without understanding what they would be paying and then having to decide whether to pay a higher price than they expected.”

Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, a Berklee College Of Music professor and founder of the Skyline Artists Agency