Extortionate resale ticket prices to be banned by proposed bill

The bill was proposed by Maurice Quinlivan, Sinn Fein’s spokesperson on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. It had previously been sidelined by the government back in May last year, but the bill was discussed by the Joint Committee on Business, Enterprise and Innovation yesterday afternoon.

“I introduced the bill in response to the publics ongoing frustration at ticket touting,” said Quinlivan. “Almost every time tickets for a match or concert go on sale, the media coverage is dominated by frustrated consumers who were unable to buy tickets when they went on sale or some who bought tickets at extortionate prices through secondary selling sites.”

“The level of touting has escalated to an abuse of the ticketing system and must be addressed”.

The proposed bill would make it an offence to sell a ticket for more than 10% above its original face value. It would also prohibit people from selling tickets that they are not in possession of.

The bill would allow Gardaí to make arrests, confiscate tickets being sold by touts and also to search premises’. If anyone was found in breach of the bill, they would be liable upon court conviction of a fine up to €5,000.

The bill was being scrutinised by Bill Cox, the Business Department’s assistant principal in consumer policy, and Kieran Grace, principal officer on competition policy. They believe that the introduction of the bill would force secondary ticketing companies to leave the Irish market. According to Kieran Grace, the main opposition to the bill comes from both primary and secondary ticket sellers.

They also argue that it is safer to buy from legitimate secondary ticket suppliers, and that any legislation might drive the market underground.

“The established secondary ticket market places offer buyers a guarantee that they will be refunded the price of tickets which are not delivered or are proved to be fake,” said Grace. “These market places afford consumers a level of protection that does not apply to secondary tickets sourced from general online market places, pop-up websites offering tickets for specific events, social networks or street resellers.”

The most popular websites for obtaining secondary tickets are Seatwave (which is owned by Ticketmaster), Stubhub and Viagogo. The websites allow people to buy and sell tickets to events. They are sometimes sold simply because the original buyer can no longer attend the event but it’s often a case of people trying to make a profit from the ticket sales as they can sell them for prices far beyond the face value.

Another fear is that the introduction of the bill will force the market underground where it cannot be safely monitored.

In recent times, artists such as Ed Sheeran, Radiohead and Noel Gallagher have all requested that all ticket holders must bring ID that matches the name on the ticket. This practice was complimented by the committee yesterday as it appeared to be a positive step towards reducing ticket touting.

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Many touts use internet robots (or simply ‘bots’) to get tickets. Bots are able to secure tickets when they go on sale to the public. These tickets are often immediately placed on secondary ticket websites.

Mr. Quinlivan hopes that the bill reduces the number of tickets that are secured by bots. “If you take the profit out of the ticket,” he said, “then the needs for the bots is diminished”.

Fine Gael TD Noel Rock, alongside Fianna Fáil’s Stephen Donnelly, proposed a similar bill last year which proposed to ban the resale of tickets above face value. However, Mr. Rock was present at the Joint Committee meeting, and showed support for Mr. Quinlivan’s bill.

“There is a clear cross party consensus with the need to address the issue,” Rock said. “There is a clear cross party consensus that ticket touting is a massive problem.”

Ticket touting laws have been brought into other countries such as Belgium and Denmark. In both these cases, secondary ticket websites closed. This may be deemed problematic as it restricts peoples options if they are genuine fans but need to sell a ticket - even if it’s for face value.

Officials from Department of BEI said that ticket-touting laws had been "reasonably effective" in places like Belgium, but raised the point that it was "problematic" because people from outside the Belgian jurisdiction could just resell tickets at inflated prices.

The introduction of the bill would not remove ticket touting entirely. Everyone involved in the discussion yesterday agreed this. It would just remove the ability to profit from reselling tickets which they hope would allow real fans better access to tickets.

As previously mentioned, some artists require you to bring ID to match the names on the tickets. Ticketmaster have also tried a “verified fan” scheme. The ultimate aim is to prevent people from bulk buying tickets with the intention of reselling them for extortionate prices.

“If this bill passes, fans will have the fair opportunity to get tickets first time around from primary sellers as touts and resellers will not be engaged in hoovering up all the tickets available as there will be no profit in reselling them. It means the bot system becomes less relevant,” said Quinlivan.

Whatever legislation goes before the Dail is likely to be met with opposition for secondary ticket sellers.