A petition to prevent the resale of concert tickets could be debated in parliament this year, with it having received nearly 40,000 signatures of its 100,000 signature goal in just 2 months.
The petition aims to put an end to the reselling of tickets to concerts and gigs, which are typically sold at an inflated price point by online scalpers. It reads: “Tickets sell out in record time! then we see them for “resale” within hours on secondary ticket sale websites at ridiculously inflated prices. Reselling of football tickets is illegal under section 166 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994″, why can this law not apply to concert tickets? [sic]”
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The petition cites a Which? report which monitored four secondary ticket sites — Seatwave, Viagogo StubHub! and Get Me In! — in order to determine whether they were intentionally seeking to rip off customers. The report found that StubHub! had 364 tickets to Rod Stewart’s UK tour up for sale before the presale had even began, while Viagogo had sold tickets to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet at the Barbican for up to £1,500, compared to their original face value of £62.50. This is despite the venue having strict restrictions upon the reselling of tickets, with them asking for photo ID at the door.
Many events have sought to bring an end to scalping, with the likes of Glastonbury printing a photo of the ticket holder on the ticket itself. Last year various members of parliament aimed to crack down on ticket resales, including Labour’s co-chair of the parliamentary group on ticket abuse Sharon Hodges, who said: “What is going on today is industrial-scale touting, with sophisticated software that can harvest thousands of tickets the second they become available.
“Until something is done to properly protect consumers this will only get worse. The complicity of the secondary platforms to distort the market and squeeze every last penny out of fans is disgraceful.”
The petition has attracted over the 10,000 signatures required for it to receive a government response, and if it reaches 100,000 signatures it will be debated in parliament.
