Minister admits ticket touting legislation is confusing

Popular concerts and events will not be covered by recently introduced legislation aimed at combatting ticket touting unless organisers and venues proactively move to protect consumers, it has been warned.

The new law outlawing the sale of tickets for designated events or venues for more than their original price came into force this summer but the Minister for State with responsibility for introducing the legislation, Robert Troy, has accepted that there is a degree of confusion across the industry about how it will operate.

As a result, he will be writing to organisers, venues and promoters on Monday to outline how the law operates and to clarify their responsibilities to act in order to protect consumers from being ripped off.

The legislation relies on organisers applying for designation for concerts or events to prevent the resale of tickets above face value. If they fail to do so then there is no legal impediment to a person charging whatever they think someone might pay for a ticket.

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Last week the organisers of a Christy Moore concert in Cork next summer, Aiken Promotions, warned people not to buy tickets for the concert on the ticket resale website Viagogo where they had appeared for sale for as much as €349, substantially higher than face value.

Ticketing websites such as Viagogo allow individuals to resell tickets at whatever price they wish and such platforms have frequently been used by ticket touts to sell tickets to sought-after events at vastly inflated prices.

Concerns about the manner in which consumers were being exploited prompted the Government to introduce the legislation outlawing the sale or advertising for sale of tickets or ticket packages at above face value once a concert or venue had designation under the law.

Subsequent to the Aiken statement, Viagogo issued a statement of its own pointing out that it was not illegal for tickets to be resold in Ireland as the law “only applies to designated venues which this venue is not”.

Rescheduled event

When asked why it had not sought designation for the event which would have prohibited the resale of tickets at above face value, Aiken Promotions initially said: “This was a rescheduled show and was sold before the legislation was passed.”

However, Mr Troy said a concert or event could fall under the legislation as soon as designation was applied for and granted no matter when the tickets went on sale.

Aiken Promotions then said it had not been aware it could apply for designation for the event and would “look into it straight away”.

Mr Troy accepted that there was some confusion about how the new law was operating. “It is a new piece of legislation to be fair and the industry has had other things on its mind but there has been widespread buy-in and it protects consumers. I will be writing to concert and event organisers personally this week to remind them of what they need to do and I would expect to see large numbers applying for designation.”