William Charles, A scene on the frontiers as practiced by the “humane” British and their “worthy” allies (detail)
Have you ever had a sold out show? If you are involved in the performing arts, you may have enjoyed the feeling of a sold out show. What a great feeling! Whether you create it, build it, perform in it, produce it, or otherwise make it happen, having a whole venue full to the brim of people who paid the box office for tickets to see your show feels great. Imagine that feeling!
Now imagine that tickets for your show are being sold on the street outside for double the price of your box office. And now imagine the people on the street are actually from your box office. Confused?
Ticketmaster, one of Australia’s largest ticketing merchants, now has a ticket reselling site, where tickets can be legitimately sold at whatever price the ticket-holder can command.
We all know that sold-out events can easily fall victim to predatory scalping. Live music concerts, shows with big name actors, major arts events can all sell out and a sell-out can attract the scalpers, previously characterised as profiteers, shady individuals selling scarce tickets at inflated prices.
Buying “scalped” tickets from unauthorised resellers has always been vigorously discouraged by producers, artists and ticket merchants. The public are regularly reminded of the ethical concerns. After all any extra money paid to scalpers doesn’t go to the deserving artists, but to those shady scalpers. Big concerts and events sometimes even release public warnings and call on extra security patrols at the venue to prevent tickets changing hands at the gates.
In the past, the ethical imperative was assisted by a practical one. The industry has been able to warn the public that such tickets may be duplicates and may not be honoured at the door.
Of course, these strictures meant if you had a ticket you didn’t need, there was no way to resell it legally, even at face value.
Advances in technology have allowed legitimate reselling to take place, which you would think is a positive advance. Individuals can now legally sell unneeded tickets and the original ticket merchant can act as a kind of chaperone to make sure the tickets are real, and to guarantee the tickets will arrive as promised.
However, in this brave new world those reselling the ticket can do so at whatever price they choose. That is as low, or, more usually, as high a price they wish.
This obviously opens up the door to a venue full of problems. Stay-at-home scalpers can purchase multiple tickets online, and legally put them back on sale at any price, making any profit, adding cost for the customer but providing no extra income for the show makers.
It may be a surprise that the ticket merchant allows this. However, the ticket merchant it seems is the only one not missing out on extra income. The merchant takes a percentage of the newly made up price (currently that percentage looks to be about 15%). So to recap, the ticket merchant takes a fee when they sell the ticket the first time on behalf of the producer, then a percentage of the re sold ticket at whatever price the new seller can get. Plus another delivery fee.
Good producers and artists not only love a sell-out show they also love their audiences. They build relationships with their audiences, build trust, and invest time and resources in creating loyalty. This applies to all good producers whether they are from the big end of town staging major musicals, or they are creating small scale new work. They also set ticket prices carefully, ensuring the price is appropriate for their audience and taking into account the money they need or want to make.
How happy should artists, producers and venues be that the ticket price they set is being inflated by others who have nothing to do with the work?
The idea of reselling unwanted tickets legitimately with some protection is surely a good idea. A small fee for the merchant managing the re sale is of course understandable and appropriate.
However, the selling of a ticket at a vastly inflated price is scalping, and allowing that practice encourages scalping. The ticket merchant taking a percentage of the inflated price, rather than a set fee, is akin to pimping.
Performances at major Australian venues including The Sydney Opera House, The Arts Centre Melbourne and the Adelaide Festival Centre use re selling. Even the iconic family-focused Carols by Candlelight event on Christmas Eve had tickets appearing for resale, with tickets listed at between $319 and $499, well above the original $180 top price. Carols by Candlelight has long been established as a charity fund raiser, so it is even more disappointing to think profits are being scooped off the top by persons not contributing to the event, rather than going to the charity.
How the ticket merchant can do this legally is somewhat of a mystery, but it seems they can. Why producers, artists and venues are allowing them to do so however, is a disgrace. This will soon lead to angry arts fans. Hopefully producers, artists and venues will use their combined power to put a stop to this gouging, and limits will be put on both the prices and the conditions of re selling tickets in Australia. Otherwise, we may finish up with tickets for arts and charity events being auctioned off to the highest bidder in online marketplaces completely disconnected from the very people who toiled so hard to put those events on.
