Sport this week was celebrating a major victory over ticket touts as it secured government support for changes to the way tickets can be re-sold on secondary ticket sites like Seatwave and Viagogo.
The agreement will mean that anyone seeking to re-sell tickets on sites like these will have to list the seat’s position and its face value. This will give consumers greater transparency, allowing them to see exactly what they are buying. It will also allow organisers to cancel, under their terms and conditions of sale, any tickets they see as being systematically resold at inflated prices by professional touts. The measures should mean that more tickets reach the hands of genuine fans at or close to face value, as event organisers intend.
The change in the law will not prevent legitimate re-sale by people who can no longer attend an event they had intended to go to but it will help event organisers in the fight against touts who are using software to snap up swathes of tickets from under the noses of fans only to immediately re-sell them on the secondary market.
The Sport and Recreation Alliance has been talking to government about ways to combat touting for a number of years but this step was finally made possible by the passage of the Consumer Rights Bill through parliament. A number of sports acting together and supported by the Alliance have mounted a determined campaign to convince parliamentarians that the change was in the interests of sport and sports fans, with ministers this week announcing that they would support the proposals.
Emma Boggis, chief executive of the Sport and Recreation Alliance, believes that the changes, which should take effect this summer, will protect spectators and organisers.
“Sport can be really pleased with the outcome. Ministers have listened to fans and to event organisers. The outcome will mean more transparency and protection for fans and more tickets reaching the hands of people who really deserve them, instead of the highest bidder.”
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