Victory for TD Noel Rock and ticket tout campaigners this morning as Ticketmaster announced the closure of secondary ticket selling sites Seatwave and Get Me In.
Secondary selling industry has been widely criticised for putting profits ahead of customers as tickets for big shows such as Ed Sheeran and U2 would regularly appear for resale moments after going on sale at massively increased prices.
The exorbitant prices forced artists such as Ed Sheeran to intervene and have tickets sold on such sites cancelled. Despite this tickets for Sheeran’s Irish tour were still for sale for as much as €1,500 on such sites.
The increasing number of fake tickets for sale also prompted concert promoter Aiken to tell fans not to purchase from these sites as they had grown increasingly frustrated at turning genuine fans who had been deceived away from sold out shows.
A statement from Keith English, Managing Director of Ticketmaster Ireland reads:
“Closing Seatwave and creating a new ticket exchange has always been part of Ticketmaster’s long-term plan. It’s not just in Ireland, it is happening across Europe.
“Our number one priority is to get tickets into the hands of fans so that they can go to the events they love. We are aware that fans are tired of seeing others snap up tickets just to resell for a profit on secondary websites, so we have decided to take action.
“And now we are delighted to launch our redesigned website which will make buying and selling tickets fast and simple, with all tickets in the same place.
“Our new Ticketmaster ticket exchange lets fans sell tickets they can’t use directly through their Ticketmaster account, for the price originally paid or less. Selling tickets through Ticketmaster is really simple: we do all the hard work and outline the maximum that can be charged for the ticket – and it doesn’t cost fans a penny to sell them.
“We’ve also put all the tickets in one place to make buying tickets simple and convenient. Fans will find all ticket types clearly marked on the same seat map, whether those are standard, Platinum, VIP or face value resale tickets, with the total price to pay clear from the start.”
The fan-to-fan ticket exchange will commence in the UK in October and across the EU in early 2019.
The move represents a major victory for campaigners who successfully lobbied politicians to bring forwards legislation earlier this year to ban the reselling of tickets above face value.
At the time, the reselling industry claimed that the legislation brought forwards by Noel Rock TD would be ineffectual, but today’s move would indicate it has in fact caused a major u-turn in the industry.
With the prospect of a massive drop in profits across the sector on the horizon It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out and what mechanisms they industry tries to introduce to claw back lost revenue going forwards.