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Live Nation executive Dan Wall has taken aim at resale sites he claims are dishonestly attempting to use antitrust arguments \u201cto protect their scalping business\u201d.<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s executive vice-president for corporate and regulatory affairs, an antitrust expert, published a blog<\/a> via Live Nation\u2019s corporate website in which he accused secondary marketplaces of claiming they want to enhance consumer rights by opposing restrictions on the resale of tickets. However, Wall, namechecking the likes of Viagogo, StubHub, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats, wrote that \u201cantitrust noise coming from resale sites and their Astroturf advocacy groups\u201d is aimed at ensuring government intervention<\/a> to keep tickets fully transferable through initiatives such as the \u2018Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights\u2019<\/a>, which was unveiled earlier this year.<\/p>\n Wall said resale sites\u2019 criticisms are a \u201csuperficially alluring argument\u201d that resale is fan-to-fan exchange among consumers who purchased a ticket at face value, as a result own it, and should therefore have the freedom to resell it without interference. However, he argued that the vast majority of resale marketplaces\u2019 business is not fan-to-fan resale but rather high-volume professional ticket resellers.<\/p>\n He also rubbished \u201callocative efficiency\u201d arguments over the alleged positive impact resale can have on the marketplace, and took aim at claims that fans own tickets outright, calling them \u201crevocable licences\u201d.<\/p>\n Wall wrote: \u201cThey may call themselves fan-to-fan exchanges, but what actually drives these platforms is a multi-billion dollar industry of ticket scalping.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the mother\u2019s milk of that industry is access to tickets, particularly tickets to the most popular shows and sporting events. To the scalpers and the secondary sites that cater to them, anything that restricts transferability is an existential threat, regardless of whether it\u2019s good for the consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n Wall said Ticketmaster estimates that 20-30% of the tickets it puts on sale for popular artists are \u201cimproperly diverted\u201d to the secondary market by bots.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cIn extreme cases, brokers using bots acquire as many as 90% of the tickets available for a particular event.\u201d Read the full blog here<\/a>.<\/p>\n