Fighting touts: Ed Sheeran’s anti-tout strategy is a great start, but he needs help!
On June 28th, 2017, to the delight of millions of fans across Europe, Ed Sheeran announced his 2018 stadium tour dates. Alongside his tour announcement was a clear signal from his management and record label that “any tickets that are resold will not be valid…this means no profit to touts and no one getting ripped off….On all the stadium dates you will be required to bring your tickets, booking confirmation and credit card, plus a valid form of ID or you will not be granted entry to the show.” There is no doubt that these restrictions will make life harder for touts; but they also suffer from a crucial flaw by making no distinction between resale for profit (touting) and resale for a genuine reason. Fans, no matter where they are from or what reason they have for not being able to attend, need to be given a fair and safe resale alternative to letting their tickets and their money, go to waste.
In cooperation with scores of promoters, venues and ticket companies around Europe, TicketSwap provides a proven fan to fan resale solution for 1.6 million fans, based on transparency, fairness and trust. The opportunity to work together to beat touts AND support fans is there for the taking; here’s why we think it’s crucial.
The Problem: Banning Resale for Touts & Fans Alike
Ed Sheeran’s stance against touting is truly admirable, and a great example of an artist who’s fed up with the way touts (and touting marketplaces like Seatwave, GetMeIn, Stubhub and Viagogo) are taking advantage of real fans to make a huge profit. The restrictions that he and his management team are imposing on resale try to battle touts head-on by making it difficult for tickets to be used by anyone other than the original purchaser. The aim of the restrictions is to get as many tickets as possible into the hands of fans (from the UK to Europe) by making it trickier for touts to sell tickets. Ed Sheeran is not the first artist to take matters into his or her own hands to prevent touting by imposing strict restrictions on the sale of tickets, and he won’t be the last (artists such as Lorde and Bon Iver have announced similar restrictions for their upcoming Europe tours). Unfortunately, while the restrictions are aimed at stamping out touts, they will also cause unnecessary harm to thousands of fans. At the same time that many fans are being protected from touts by these restrictions, many are also being stripped of the consumer flexibility and freedom that allows them to sell or gift tickets in fair, safe and transparent transactions. The inevitable cost of the current approach is the huge burden it puts on fans (and in particular Ed’s non-UK fans); the very people it is trying to protect from touting.
The thing about buying tickets is that once they are purchased, they become nearly impossible for the purchaser to refund or change — they are only valid for specific date and time, and it is industry standard for tickets to be non-refundable. Usually this isn’t a huge problem when you are buying a ticket for this evening, this weekend, this month or even this Halloween. However, when you purchase a ticket for an event in 12 months time, all manner of clashes and conflicts can manifest themselves in the meantime (from injury and illness to weddings and holidays to relationship woes and money troubles; the possible list of genuine reasons is endless). By making it even more difficult for fans to use an Ed Sheeran ticket (4 forms of ID required), let alone gift to a friend or resale at face value, this eliminates the possibility of fans recouping the money they spent on tickets they can no longer use.
Within the UK, fans are being directed to use Ed Sheeran’s official resale partner to buy and sell spare tickets, but a big question mark looms over tickets purchased for dates outside of the UK, where conceivably there will be just as many real fans with genuine reasons for not being able to use their spare tickets. Ranging from Ireland to Poland, the mammoth 46-show tour does not kick off until May 2018, and yet when tickets went on sale on July 8th they sold out within minutes in most cities. For these sold out dates, attention immediately turns to the non-refundable nature of concert tickets, the availability of secondhand tickets and the lack of a safe and fair way for real fans to buy and sell spare tickets to non-UK show dates. The current reality is that thousands of fans who have purchased tickets nearly a year in advance for Sheeran’s 19 non-UK dates are being asked to see into the future or face losing the money they spent if they can no longer attend. From a consumer-perspective, this is unacceptable, particularly when a solution like TicketSwap exists and operates across Europe.
The Solution: Extend Ed Sheeran’s fan to fan resale across Europe
At TicketSwap, the flexibility and safety of fans is always put first. With just under a year between now and the shows, a lot can happen, and fans deserve the freedom to get their money back in a fair and transparent manner. This is why TicketSwap created a safe, fair and transparent resale platform, now used for millions of transactions between fans across thousands of events across Europe. By bringing fan to fan resale into the open, with unique transparency on price and clarity on sellers’ identity, TicketSwap gives fans the tools and security to protect themselves from touts and scammers. Our Secure Swap solution delivers 100% safe tickets by replacing sold tickets with new, unique tickets. Moreover, Secure Swap has been used for personalised events, changing the name to the new buyer in order to prevent any further resell (this has been used to great effect for high demand events like The Flying Dutch festival — over 7000 tickets sold in 2017. And, unlike any other fan to fan resale platform, TicketSwap operates across borders and across currencies, allowing fans to access a safe and fair resale platform wherever they might be.
For a trans-national tour like Ed Sheeran’s 2018, TicketSwap is the ideal resale platform, both for fans who have spare tickets to sell, and fans who missed out on the initial general sale. This is not just conjecture or hot air; our record proves that TicketSwap’s platform can ensure ticket resale remains fair and safe, from stadium shows and festivals to sporting events and intimate concerts. For example:
1. During the two Ed Sheeran shows in Amsterdam earlier this year (April 3rd and 4th), a combined 698 tickets were successfully sold between fans on TicketSwap. All of these sales were monitored and screened by our support staff and regulated by our price cap (20% above face value, this means a €50 ticket could be sold for a maximum of €60). Fans who bought tickets they could no longer use were given a safe, easy and honest way to recoup their money, and fans who missed out on tickets were provided a fair alternative to being ripped off by touts.
2. Justin Bieber’s two 2016 stadium tour dates in the Netherlands sold out immediately after going on sale on December 17th 2015 — just as they did throughout Europe and the UK. Yet between going on sale and the actual performances (October 8th & 9th 2016), over 7000 tickets were resold between fans on TicketSwap, nearly 10% of the 76,000 total tickets sold over the two dates. Again, all of these transactions occurred transparently on our platform under our strictly enforced price cap.
3. Coldplay’s recent 3 dates (July 15th, 16th & 18th)at the Stade de France in Paris were expectedly sold out and tickets in high demand. Nearly 1ooo tickets were sold on TicketSwap across the 3 dates, in transparent, safe and convenient transactions between French fans.
These examples point to the viability of our platform for Sheeran’s dates outside of the UK. Yet the restrictions that their anti-touting strategy has imposed mean not only that fans will be left without a fair outlet to resell their spare tickets but that thousands of other fans will miss out on a fair chance to buy safe tickets at a fair price from other fans, and likely fall victim to touts on Viagogo and other unscrupulous marketplaces. The current state of affairs for the non-UK dates is one of confusion and frustration for fans, who are given conflicting and unclear information from Ed Sheeran’s management, the local event promoters, ticket companies and venues. It’s simply madness to expect tens of thousands of fans to pay for tickets without knowing they can actually use them or gift them, prevent them from getting a refund and then provide them with no alternative for recouping the money.
Obviously, the desire to impose these restrictions on Ed Sheeran tour tickets (or those of Lorde and others) comes from a very positive and well-meaning intention: recognising that there is a problem with touting and taking steps to prevent it. Similarly, the growing trend of other high-profile artists using their power to make life difficult for touts is a welcome development in the music industry. Yet the success of any such anti-touting push also depends on the ability of honest fans, no matter where they are based, to easily buy and sell spare tickets on safe and fair platform. This is the part of the solution that seems to have overlooked by Ed Sheeran’s management, whose focus has understandably trained on the UK market, and perhaps unaware that such a solution exists and thrives abroad. At TicketSwap, we would welcome the chance to work with Ed Sheeran, and his local partners (promoters, ticketing companies and venues) to ensure his non-UK fans are not left without a coherent, and viable option for reselling their tickets in accordance with the artist’s anti-touting strategy. It’s clear that there’s a need for a trusted partner to oversee this resell activity to ensure it remains fair, safe and transparent, and this is a role we are ready and able to play.
