Stub Hub launches desperate attempt for public backing

Written on Thu 04 Feb 2016

As the political pressure to ban ticket touts increases, the team at StubHub have come up with the brilliant idea of running a petition to show the world just how much they and their ticket-touts are loved. In a tone slightly reminiscent of the ‘Give smokers a choice’ propaganda put forward by tobacco companies, and using the same mindless rhetoric about the government ‘restricting your rights’, their campaign calls for a ‘clear legal right’ for fans to be able to resell spare tickets without ‘restrictive terms’ being imposed.

So before anyone rushes to sign this, lets remember the basic facts.  Tickets are not a freely-transferrable commodity, they are a contract (between the promoter and buyer), and therefore the promoters can apply whatever terms and conditions that they see fit. So many promoters might not want StubHub and their chums to profiteer, at the expense of genuine music lovers, and promoters might also want to ensure that the tickets that they sell for their events go to the buyers that they want to sell to, rather than to the highest bidder.

We think the existence of this petition is evidence that the secondary market is getting rattled. They know that their time is up. They know that more and more artists, venues and fans are getting sick of touts. This is a market which needs more regulation, not more greed.

We’ll give you the link, on the strict understanding that you won’t sign it, because we know you’ll love the comments.

https://www.change.org/p/professor-michael-waterson-support-our-right-to-resell-tickets?mi_u=1383068