Trading standards is urging sports fans, music lovers and theatre buffs to take sensible precautions to avoid losing out to ticket touts, scam websites and the practices of some ticket resale operators this year.
The advice comes as the Department for Culture, Media and Sport launches a consultation on the future of the ticketing market designed to improve the allocation of tickets to real fans and ensure the industry works towards a common set of principles and standards. Consultation on Ticketing and Ticket Touting runs for 12 weeks until May 15 and can be found on the DCMS website.<br><br>Last year, a number of websites claiming to sell tickets for the Reading, Leeds and V festivals – as well as the Beijing Olympics – shut down, leaving thousands of fans without tickets and out of pocket. Consumer Direct also received complaints about companies charging inflated prices and failing to deliver tickets on time.<br><br>At Telford Council in Shropshire, Jacqui Seymour, Cabinet Member for Adult and Consumer Care, said: "Tickets for events like the V Festival, which comes to Staffordshire every year, are often quite expensive, so people look for a good deal. However, be aware that a ‘too good to be true’ offer usually is.<br>"By following the advice below you should be able to steer clear of offers that will leave you high and dry."<br>Consumer Direct, who work in partnership with Trading Standards, has issued the following advice:<br>• Consider buying through the box office or primary ticket agents – these are the official agents who have agreements with promoters or venues to sell tickets for events.<br>• When buying tickets online, ensure that you have the full contact details, landline telephone number and a postal location of the company. Just because the website may have a ‘.co.uk’ address – this doesn’t necessarily mean that the company is based in the UK. Most of this information can usually be found on the terms and conditions ‘contact us’ or customer services pages of the website.<br>• Before you buy, make sure you have information about the face value of the tickets, how much you will pay in additional fees, including booking fees, transaction charges and postage, where the seat is and whether it has a restricted view.<br>• Read the terms and conditions so that you understand how you are going to receive the tickets, what will happen if they don’t arrive, and what will happen if the event is cancelled, changed or you have to cancel.<br>• If you are buying from secondary agents, who purchase tickets for resale to consumers, be aware that prices can be at a premium when demand is high so it can be worth shopping around. Again make sure you know the face value, seat location and any additional fees.<br>• Beware of fraudulent online ticket sites and don’t be fooled by a site which looks professional. Also beware of sellers who make promises that sound too good to be true – such as being able to sell cheap tickets for sold out events or offering tickets before they are officially on sale. Look at internet forums to see if others have had bad experiences and check the company’s geographic address and contact numbers.<br>• Be aware of the risks of buying tickets through internet auctions and from street touts.<br>• When booking online check that the payment pages are secure by looking for a padlock symbol or making sure the website address begins with an https prefix.<br>• If you are buying tickets costing over £100, consider using a credit card for additional protection.<br>David Hurst, Contact Centre Manager for Consumer Direct West Midlands said: "The number of calls received by Consumer Direct suggests that some areas of the ticket market aren’t treating fans fairly. Sporting events, gigs and festivals are often times when people get together and look forward to the event. By taking sensible precautions, you can reduce the risk of disappointment and financial loss."<br>Further advice is available from Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06 or by visiting www.consumerdirect.gov.uk<br><br>The ticketing and events industries need to improve the service they offer to fans and cut down significantly on the number of tickets being sold to touts, Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said today.<br>The Government is proposing a package of measures designed to help consumers and wants to see much more use of innovative approaches that have successfully prevented touts from buying up tickets for high profile events.<br>Gerry Sutcliffe said:<br>“Real efforts are being made by some event organisers to thwart the touts and ensure that as many tickets as possible go straight to real fans. But most of the time tickets go to whoever is quickest online on the day they go on sale – and too much of the time that is touts who simply want to resell at a profit. The industry now needs to quickly build on these successful new approaches and ensure they become much more widespread.<br>“An honest and transparent resale market can be beneficial; it provides fans with an opportunity to buy tickets for sold-out events or sell tickets they can no longer use.”<br>In a cross-Government approach, designed to tackle the problems associated with ticket touting, the Government is today publishing:<br>a consultation which seeks to find consensus on how best to improve the ticketing market for the benefit of consumers; and <br><br>new advice from Consumer Direct with tips on how to safely shop for tickets online.<br><br>Ticket fraud is illegal and there are already measures in place to protect consumers from unfair practices, with recent enforcement action by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR).<br><br>The consultation, published on February 19, seeks views on whether STAR (The Society for Ticket Agents and Retailers) could act as a beacon of good practice, where the display of the STAR logo would ensure customers were buying from reputable sellers.<br>STAR members could cooperate to ensure that sales of tickets for events considered to be of outstanding national significance would be rigorously enforced. In this way expensive resale of such tickets would be drastically reduced.<br><br>At the same time the Government wants to hear from consumers, events organisers and ticket sellers about the success of innovative ways of preventing tickets being sold in large numbers to touts. These might include individual names printed on tickets, the use of matching ID to gain access to venues or the replacement of paper tickets altogether. Some recent examples of successful measures are detailed at Annex A. <br>A further measure proposed today is to ask more football clubs to adopt official exchange arrangements for fans who want to sell tickets they can no longer use. Under current public order legislation, unofficial resale of football tickets is illegal, but official, club-sanctioned exchange systems are allowed. <br><br>Gerry Sutcliffe said: “There is no great appetite for further legislation in the ticketing market, whether from fans, event organisers or the ticket sellers themselves. But we need to see some rapid improvements: more exchange arrangements for football fans and a new deal for everyone looking to buy tickets and frustrated by the actions of ticket touts. We cannot rule out the possibility of legislation if consumers continue to be disappointed by the ticketing market.”<br><br>Tackling touting<br><br>Leeds, Reading and Latitude festival promoter Festival Republic is this year warning fans to beware of unauthorised ticket agencies and only buy tickets from agencies that it names on its website or from its website directly. The information is prominently displayed on the homepage of each of its festivals’ websites, with links to more detailed information about avoiding touts and scams. They also provide a long list of unauthorised sites they recommend avoiding.<br>The England and Wales Cricket Board has introduced a raft of measures to combat touting for the forthcoming ICC World Twenty20, England 2009. These include printing the name of the buyer on every ticket, with spot checks planned on match days. Tickets will not be dispatched until three or four weeks before the event to reduce opportunities for resale. Sales teams have already identified buyers who have deliberately broken the ticket rules by setting up multiple accounts using the same personal data e.g. address, email and credit card. This process has led to over 3,000 tickets being cancelled with registrants from both the UK and Eastern Europe attempting to buy over 40 tickets for the same match-day. Ticket resale is allowed only by registering with the ECB.<br>Wimbledon tickets have been oversubscribed for many years and the AELTA operates a public ballot for tickets each year, backed up by the following anti-touting measures: all Wimbledon tickets, apart from Debentures Holders that are clearly marked, will only be valid if sold either by The All England Lawn Tennis Club or by one of its licensed and authorised agents. Unauthorised sale or transfer of tickets immediately invalidates them. The Club takes active steps to monitor and control sales including those made via shops and more recently, internet sites. Sellers of non-Debenture tickets are contacted and injunctions taken out against those who do not cooperate and act contrary to the Club’s ticket policy. Where the details of tickets being advertised for sale are known, the tickets are cancelled meaning that the purchasers will not gain entry to The Championships.<br>Singer Tom Waits introduced anti-touting measures for last year’s Edinburgh and Dublin shows. All tickets were printed with the name of the buyer, and everyone attending the shows had to produce a matching passport or driving licence, with all tickets scanned to verify authenticity. <br>Tickets for Led Zeppelin’s reunion concert at the O2 were allocated by web ballot, with a maximum of two per person. More than a million people registered interest in the 18,000 available tickets. Ticket holders had to bring with them ID and the credit card they used to book tickets, and were given a wrist band at the venue which was void if tampered with. Although some tickets were offered for sale on the secondary market, event organisers warned those tempted to pay inflated prices that they risked losing their money and not gaining access to the venue.<br><br>Inside the 32-page consultation document, the government makes plain that: "The Government is in favour of a market-led solution for ticket sales and resale. One of the reasons that the secondary market has grown, particularly online, is the consumer’s willingness to buy and sell in this way." But the DCMS does not want ticket buyers exploited by unscrupulous operators.<br><br>As the consultation paper says: " Paper tickets remain the simplest and most common form of access to an event. However, these can also be easily resold (in general, this is legal activity for consumers), lost or faked. Technology to replace traditional paper tickets largely remains in its infancy, but some events organisers have turned to mobile phone technology, bar codes and photo identification as a means of managing access to their events." <br><br>Generally, the reselling of tickets by consumers is not illegal and consumers have the right to buy and sell to each other. There are some exceptions to this, such as football. That’s to ensure rival fans are segregated during a match to prevent possible public disorder. Also, section 31 of the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 makes it a criminal offence to sell a 2012 Games ticket in a public place or in the course of a business, without organisers’ permission.<br><br>The DCMS wants the reputable part of the events ticketing sector to sign up to a ‘code of principles’. Also suggested is a quality mark for ticket sellers. <br><br>As the consultation document says: "The integrity of the market is undermined by rogue websites and individuals who mislead consumers or engage in fraudulent activity. This is already illegal under criminal and consumer protection law, but consumers can still fall victim to this. There is evidence that some consumers cannot easily distinguish between primary and secondary, legal and illegal agents and may not realise that a particular website is risky."<br><br>Cricket response<br><br>Responding to the publication by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport of a consultation document on the subject of ticket touting, ECB chief executive David Collier said: “The ECB welcomes the publication of proposals by the Government to protect major sporting events from touting.<br><br>“Touting has become a scourge on all major sporting events. The short-term impact is to price out fans, the longer term impact could be to turn people, in particular families, away from the sport.<br><br>“That is why the ECB and international match venues are taking decisive action to clamp down on their activities at this summer’s ICC World Twenty20 and npower Ashes series.<br><br>“We understand that sports themselves have a key role to play in stopping touting. That is why we are committing considerable resource to the fight and have already succeeded in cancelling hundreds of touted tickets for the major events of this summer. We have also introduced an electronic exchange system for the ICC World Twenty20 which provides supporters with the opportunity to dispose of tickets which, for genuine reasons, they can no longer utilise through an official channel.<br><br>“The ECB can only do so much to prevent touting. To be really effective we need to strengthen our partnership with the Government.<br><br>“The ECB is pleased the Government has issued a formal consultation to address touting which has spread due to the efficiency of electronic systems.<br><br>“We will take this opportunity to demonstrate the work we are doing and make the case that, unless the secondary market addresses the sale of tickets above face value, new legislation is needed.<br><br>“The ECB has previously proposed to the secondary market that they work with us to prevent touting abuses at the very top matches. Unfortunately they have not agreed.<br><br>“We hope the clear statement of intent from the DCMS makes them reconsider their actions.”<br><br>The ECB has been campaigning for greater regulatory action against touting for several years and Collier has been a member of the DCMS ticket touting summits.<br><br>The ECB recently published its own guidance to supporters on touting, including the establishment of an email hotline to report suspected ticket touts. The CB points to increasing evidence that the secondary ticket market and touting is being infiltrated by criminal operations who don’t even have tickets to sell. This activity plagued the recent 2008 Beijing Olympics and has affected other major sports. The only safe way to buy a ticket is from the authorised ticket seller. If you see or hear of tickets being touted, or can provide evidence of people touting tickets, then report it to the ECB by emailing [email protected].<br><br>The ECB and Test venues in England are to track and cancel tickets that are being touted. This includes monitoring sales for multiple applications and the employment of a specialist monitoring surveillance activity on on-line auction sites. <br>On match days, spectators may be subject to spot checks to ensure that the person entering the ground is the person who purchased the ticket.
