THE UK’s culture minister has pledged to block repeats of “the Oasis moment” when fans were hit by massive price hikes at the moment of paying for prized gig tickets.
Chris Bryant admitted that “dynamic pricing” can anger and disappointment for fans when it allows Ticketmaster and bands to suddenly ramp up prices.
At a Commons debate on ticketing Perth MP Pete Wishart acknowledged the Daily Record’s Stub Out The Touts campaign as he made an appeal for ministers to ensure there is no future for strategies that allow bands like Oasis to gouge their own fans.
The rock and roll giants allowed fans to queue online for tickets for hours – then hit many of them with a massive price hike of up to £300 when it came to pay on Ticketmaster.
Culture minister Chris Bryant has pledged to look at shutting that option, which was created as a carve-up by Ticketmaster and Oasis management as part of the seller’s dynamic pricing strategy – which usually means more expensive tickets.
Wishart addressed a Commons debate on ticketing, that followed up on the announcement of a public consultation this is expected to set a price cap on ticket resales – which the Daily Record has campaigned for.
Wishart said: “I warmly congratulate the Government on bringing forward these measures, which I wholeheartedly support.
“For too long, music fans have been ripped off and abused by the touts and scalpers, who have been nothing other than parasites on our live music sector, so I wholeheartedly welcome these proposals”
Wishart paid tribute to Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, who has doggedly campaigned for ticket reforms, including a 10% price cap.
He said: “I pay tribute to the hon member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson), as well as the FanFair Alliance — which has been campaigning on this issue for such a long time — and campaigning newspapers such as the Daily Record that regularly feature large articles on it.
“While we have this consultation in place, I would like to hear more about the proposals on dynamic pricing, which I think is the issue that perplexed music fans more than anything else over the summer.
“We now have some sort of routeway towards resolving ticket touting, but we need to hear more about exactly what the Minister will do about dynamic pricing, because that is something that needs fixed.”
Sharon Hodgson, MP for Washington and Gateshead South, gave three no-nonsense demands – for a price cap, accompanied by a properly funded enforcement regime and “supra-national” powers to stop international touts.
She said: “Having campaigned on this issue for over 15 years, I have reached three main conclusions.
“First, the cap on resale should be set as low as possible.
“For example, face value plus 5% or 10% — to take the incentive out of scalping, or else we should simply follow the Irish model and prohibit resale for profit altogether.
“Secondly, many touts and resale sites are based overseas, so legislation must be supranational.
“Finally, any crackdown on the black market must be fully enforced, unlike in the current situation where prosecutions are few and far between: there have been a handful — six at most.” Tory Dame Caroline Dinenage pointed out that if touts are eliminated by hard hitting legislation, Ticketmaster will have no excuse for dynamic pricing – which they claim is a strategy to stop scalping.
She said: “It is telling that while Ticketmaster welcomed the resale consultations, it is silent on the dynamic pricing issue.”
Chris Bryant, minister for culture, media and sport, said the government’s commitments to tackling dynamic pricing were tentative, as some measures, like early bird prices, don’t rip off fans.
He said: “There is one other aspect—we might call it “the Oasis moment”—on which we are seeking evidence.
“The key thing is that fans are treated fairly and openly, with timely, transparent and accurate information presented ahead of sales.”
Bryant said ticket touts have leached off fans’ passion.
He said: “In the past, it was spivs in long raincoats at the gates.
“Nowadays it is a trade made all the more pernicious by the internet, which enables modern-day touts, hiding behind multiple false identities, to hoover up tickets and sell them at vastly inflated prices.
“It is indefensible. It trades off other people’s hopes and does not return a single penny to the artists, the performers, the venue, the industry or the sport. We said we would tackle this, and that is precisely what we are doing.”
Bryant said the consultation will look at bringing in a licensing regime, new limits on the number of tickets resellers can list, and new requirements for platforms to ensure the accuracy of listings.
He said: “We are also keen to tackle scalping—that is to say for-profit resales of tickets above face value.
“That is why we are considering a statutory price cap on ticket resales, as seen in many other countries.
Its purpose would be to break the business model of organised touts by prohibiting resale at vastly inflated prices.
“In the consultation, we ask how a price cap should be designed and implemented, so as to deliver a genuine sea change in the ticketing landscape to the benefit of fans and the live events sector, and whether it should be face value only, or plus 10%, 20% or 30%.”
Bryant agreed that the meagre number of prosecutions by cash-strapped Trading Standards bodies must improve.
He said: “We have hardly seen any prosecutions whatever under the complex set of rules that there are at the moment, and that is one of the things that we have to fix.
One of my anxieties about this whole situation is that there have not been very many prosecutions, which is perhaps because the law has been too complicated. However, it may also be because trading standards departments have really struggled in recent years, because they are subject to local authority budget cuts.”
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