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AIF launches face value ticket exchange

By | Published on Monday 11 July 2011

AIF

The Association Of Independent Festivals has launched its own ticket exchange for sold out events. Those who have bought tickets for such festivals but can no longer attend will be able to resell their tickets via the new website, though at face value only.

The Ticket Trust, which will be run by a company called Sandbag, will verify tickets are genuine and make sure they get to buyers, who will be given an extra chance to get tickets to otherwise sold out events without having to pay hiked up prices on more traditional ticket exchange websites or risk buying from fraudsters with no real tickets to sell. Buyers will be charged up to a 10% commission.

AIF Vice-Chair Ben Turner, who has spearheaded the new ticket resale service, told CMU: “AIF has pulled together its festival members to collectively make a simple message – AIF festivals DO NOT and WILL NOT play the secondary ticketing market for profiteering. AIF stands for strong principles in the festival sector and we object to the practices of many of the so-called secondary ticketing market companies”.

He continued: “I heard Christiaan from Sandbag speak at In The City on a panel about this sector and his anger, passion and vision for change inspired me to approach him on-the-spot to partner with AIF on this project. AIF and the Sandbag board, which includes key members of the Radiohead team, have similar values and a will to help improve the situation by offering an alternative way to exchange tickets for non-profit”.

Christiaan Munro of Sandbag Limited added: “In the last decade, we have seen the rise of peer-to-peer secondary ticketing initially with auction sites and now with marketplaces set up exclusively to cater to opportunist individuals. There is a finite amount of money that fans have to spend on music and entertainment and we often see tickets we have sold being sold at more than ten times the face value. The increase in ticket price, with profit siphoned away, can only be to the detriment of the music industry as a whole. Secondary ticketing for profit is not yet illegal for concert tickets, but it’s just plain wrong. Fans should not have to pay over the odds for tickets just because one of their peers with no intention of going to the show got in there first”.



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