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Prince hits out at touts as ticket sales suspended
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 16 November 2015
Prince hit out at the touts on Friday as he postponed putting tickets on sale for his upcoming UK shows.
Although official sellers didn’t explain why ticket sales for the shows had been suspended, Prince’s Twitter feed posted a picture of a vulture with the multiple choice selection “A. Scavenger; B. Vulture; C. Tout; D All Of The Above”, before posting a link to Which? magazine’s latest report on the ticketing sector.
The consumer rights title has just published the findings of an eight week investigation into the secondary ticketing industry, ie the websites that allow others to resell tickets to in-demand events. The magazine’s conclusions contain most of the usual criticisms of the resale sector, in particular that resale sites are primarily used by people touting on an industrial level, and that ticketing sites, agents and promoters are themselves touting tickets to big shows and events.
Which? also adds that “in a recent survey of 1241 members, 29% said they didn’t understand the difference between primary and secondary ticket companies. It doesn’t help that the distinction between promoters, venues, and primary and secondary ticketing agents is blurred through numerous takeovers and partnerships. Take Ticketmaster: it became a Live Nation company in 2010 and now owns two major secondary sites – Get Me In! and Seatwave”.
Secondary ticketing is under review by the government once again, of course, following the introduction of some mild regulation of online reselling in the Consumer Rights Act earlier this year. The live sector remains divided on the issue, some leading the anti-tout agenda, while others participate in the resale market.
The big secondary sites, like StubHub and Viagogo, and the aforementioned Get Me In! and Seatwave, maintain that no further regulation is required, and that any attempts to further legislate will send the touts to sites outside the UK, where consumers are more at risk of giving money to fraudulent resellers who do not actually have the tickets they are selling.
Beyond resource-heavy photo-ID-based ticketing, it’s debatable what anti-tout artists like Prince can do about people reselling their tickets, though ensuring that no one linked to his shows is doing the touting would be a start. It’s possible mobile ticketing could limit touting to an extent, but it would be a brave artist that would make mobile tickets compulsory, with smartphone ownership yet to become universal.
