This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Live Business
Ticketmaster launches ticket transfer service
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 13 February 2013
Ticketmaster has added a ‘transfer’ option to it’s US-based platform, which means that American customers can transfer tickets to friends at no cost, with the barcode from the original ticket cancelled and a new bar-code issued to the friend.
The process will enable consumers who buy tickets for a group to more easily distribute the actual tickets to each group member, and people who can no longer attend a show to transfer their ticket to another person within the Ticketmaster system.
The new functionality is part of the ticket giant’s aim to make the primary ticketing experience more user-friendly. Whether offering the easier transfer system will in any way combat the resale of tickets via the secondary market (in which Ticketmaster operates) is debatable – indeed, although it would enable Ticketmaster to identify and potentially block users transferring large numbers of tickets, it could aid small-time ticket reselling – though some argue that unhelpful primary ticketing services make the secondary markets seem more attractive to consumers, despite the sometimes extortionate prices.
Either way, the main way Ticketmaster benefits is presumably the extra data it can gather, as friends receiving transferred tickets will need Ticketmaster accounts. And for Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation, data is an increasingly important part of the mix.
The transfer system will not be available for paperless tickets, something Ticketmaster has been developing mainly with a view to combating rampant touting. Ticketmaster says allowing the transfer of paperless tickets would “defeat the purpose” of the anti-tout system, though the inability for credit card holding customers who want to legitimately transfer paperless tickets (to friends in their gig-going group, children or because they can no longer attend) is a fundamental issue with the entire paperless system as currently operates.
