Ticketmaster to close resale sites Get Me In and Seatwave - MSE News

Missing from the details is how much the original purchaser will receive from the sale, how much of the original ticket price and how much of the booking fee. With the addition of a larger and larger booking fee each time one particular ticket is resold, will this new system discourage the onward sale of tickets multiple times to inflate the price?


What is there to stop TicketMaster employees buying a ticket, and then onwards selling it 10 times among themselves so that the original £50.00 + £7.50 price has been inflated to £232.62 + £34.89 = £267.51, comprising £50 for the ticket plus an accumulated £217.51 booking fee to the benefit of TicketMaster?

It remains to be seen whether this headline-grabber will truly result in lower prices for tickets.

The potential for further fraud could be eliminated if the original seller gets back what they paid for the ticket (perhaps less a small handling charge) and lost the booking fee and the ticket was resold at face value plus the standard booking fee. This would prevent an escalation of ticket price upon each "resale". It is the escalation of ticket price that has been the problem, and this problem does not appear to be solved by the current proposal. It leaves the door open for a fake resale history to be generated to inflate the booking fees to TicketMaster's advantage.

If you were to see more than perhaps 1% or 2% of the tickets for an event to be "resale" tickets, would you believe the claim to be genuine? If you see more than the "very occasional" ticket with a price indicating it has been "resold" at least once before, would you believe that also?

Ian011 wrote: »

Missing from the details is how much the original purchaser will receive from the sale, how much of the original ticket price and how much of the booking fee. With the addition of a larger and larger booking fee each time one particular ticket is resold, will this new system discourage the onward sale of tickets multiple times to inflate the price?


What is there to stop TicketMaster employees buying a ticket, and then onwards selling it 10 times among themselves so that the original £50.00 + £7.50 price has been inflated to £232.62 + £34.89 = £267.51, comprising £50 for the ticket plus an accumulated £217.51 booking fee to the benefit of TicketMaster?

It remains to be seen whether this headline-grabber will truly result in lower prices for tickets.

The potential for further fraud could be eliminated if the original seller gets back what they paid for the ticket (perhaps less a small handling charge) and lost the booking fee and the ticket was resold at face value plus the standard booking fee. This would prevent an escalation of ticket price upon each "resale". It is the escalation of ticket price that has been the problem, and this problem does not appear to be solved by the current proposal. It leaves the door open for a fake resale history to be generated to inflate the booking fees to TicketMaster's advantage.

If you were to see more than perhaps 1% or 2% of the tickets for an event to be "resale" tickets, would you believe the claim to be genuine? If you see more than the "very occasional" ticket with a price indicating it has been "resold" at least once before, would you believe that also?

Why would the ticket price escalate upon each resale? As I understand it, a ticket would be resold at its face value+15%+Booking Fee. Your £50 ticket would cost a maximum of £66.12 (from the article) each time it is resold.

"At this point, they will be told the maximum amount they can sell their tickets for. This will be no more than the cost of the ticket, plus a 15% booking fee, but buyers will then also be charged a further booking fee."

As per the article the price the ticket can be sold on for is clearly fixed at the cost of the ticket (or less) plus 15% of that price as a booking fee. If what is stated is correct than the escalation described couldn't happen as the face value of the ticket never changes.