Secondary ticket sites 'make it harder to go to gigs'

Danielle (fourth from left) has used secondary sites before and says she would again if she 'really wanted a ticket'

"I just sit there waiting for nine o'clock to come around to get tickets," says music fan Danielle Telford.

She's spent more than £1,000 on concert tickets this month but believes it's "definitely getting harder" to buy them from official sellers.

Her comments come as the government's deadline for asking for fans' experiences of using secondary ticketing websites approaches.

Fans have until Friday 20 November to offer their views.

'I don't trust secondary sites'

It's not illegal to resell tickets for profit

"I've signed up to fan mailing lists and priority sites, but other than that there's not much you can do," explains Danielle.

"If I really want to go I'll use secondary sites but I don't really trust them."

One of the aims of the review, which is being carried out by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), is to look at how effective recent changes to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 have been.

In May, websites which resell tickets were told sellers would have to provide seat numbers and, in some cases, the face value of the ticket.

Danielle, who is a 25-year-old medical student, says: "I know one of the secondary sites tells you the area of your seat, and another has both the original price and seat number.

"But I don't really see how that helps. If anything it just rubs it in your face that you should have paid £35 or whatever the original price was."

Last week a report by consumer group Which? suggested fans are missing out on going to gigs and sporting events because of ticket resale sites.

They monitored Get Me In!, Seatwave, StubHub! and Viagogo and said they found what they claim to be "unusual selling patterns" including tickets appearing before they had gone on general sale.

In response a statement from Ticketmaster, which owns both Get Me In and Seatwave, said: "Ticketmaster's resale marketplaces, Get Me In and Seatwave, offer fans full consumer protection, with guarantees of full refund or ticket replacement."

Estanis Martin de Nicolas, StubHub!'s international general manager, said: "We do not own, purchase or price tickets.

"It is very clear in our terms and conditions that sellers are not permitted to list or sell tickets that they do not own or that have not been allocated to them, known as speculative selling."

Botnets

Prince recently postponed the sale of tickets to his European tour over concerns about tickets being resold on third-party websites

The Which? report called for a crackdown on resale sites, saying fans are being "stitched-up".

It suggested so-called botnets, illegal computer systems which are set up to buy large amounts of tickets as soon as they go on sale, could be behind some selling patterns on secondary sites.

Danielle thinks some of the shows she's tried to buy tickets for have been affected by botnets.

"The amount of tours that sell out at two minutes past nine, you just think, 'How is it possible?'"

In response to Which?'s claims, StubHub said: "If we are made aware of speculative selling on our site for specific events, we will investigate and remove the listings where appropriate.

"However, there are many cases where fans will have access to priority tickets in advance of an official on-sale and this is one reason why tickets can be listed so quickly."

Meanwhile, Ticketmaster said the resale market in the UK had "developed high levels of consumer protection over recent years".

Why now?

This review is a planned part of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 so was always going to happen now.

But Professor Michael Waterson, who will be looking through the evidence, says asking for the public's help isn't a sign of the government not knowing how to deal with secondary ticket sites.

"When there was a change made in parliament, there were lots of differing views," he tells Newsbeat.

"It's not Conservatives against Labour. There are people on both sides who have very different views... that's why it's [the call for evidence] been drawn so widely."

"There are other ways [to look at the issue] which we will be adopting but getting evidence is one of the key ways."

'Automatically void'

The DCMS is also interested in the relationship between primary ticket sellers and secondary sites as well as to help make sure there is a fair chance for consumers to get tickets.

When tickets for the upcoming Harry Potter and The Cursed Child theatre show went on sale, a statement on the official website explained any tickets not sold through the official website "will be automatically void".

Newsbeat asked the company promoting the play and Society of London Theatre to explain why but both declined to comment.

However, the promoters reiterated that because of this policy, a refund system will be in place from December for anyone who can not attend any performance they have tickets for.

Newsbeat has also approached Ticketmaster and StubHub, Viagogo for a response.

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