Industry News

See Tickets among latest to sign FanFair declaration


Ticket firms including Glastonbury partner See Tickets and events platform Eventim have become the latest to sign up to FanFair Alliance’s declaration against online ticket touts.

Gigantic, Skiddle, The Ticket Factory, Resident Advisor and alt.tickets have also this week joined more than 100 music managers, agents, promoters, entrepreneurs, ticket retailers and trade bodies in supporting the campaign.

The FanFair Declaration asks that supporters take five actions to ensure face value tickets reach fans, as well as measures to disrupt the practices of online ticket touts. FanFair supports exchange or resale of tickets for face value.

The move comes in the same week that the UK’s consumer watchdog announced a new enforcement investigation into the secondary ticketing market.

“There is a clear trend emerging between those who want to tackle industrial-scale touting and those who profit from it, and we are delighted that Gigantic, See Tickets, Skiddle and The Ticket Factory have signed the FanFair Declaration,” said FanFair campaign manager Adam Webb.

“We will be encouraging more to come on board in 2017.”
FanFair was established in July 2016 “to coalesce the growing number of industry voices wishing to take a stand against industrial-scale online ticket touting across the secondary ticketing platforms Get Me In!, Seatwave, StubHub and Viagogo”.

The four firms and the wider industry are the subject of the new Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation.

It seeks to promote strategies that will support pro-consumer legislation, grow the primary market and help ensure face value tickets reach the hands of genuine fans.

Other signatories include Arctic Monkeys, Ed Sheeran, Iron Maiden, Noel Gallagher and PJ Harvey. Ticket sites SongKick, Dice, WeGotTickets, Twickets, MusicGlue and Billetto have also added their names to the declaration.

Having produced a guide for artists and managers in September, FanFair said it will publish a fans’ guide to ticketing in early 2017.

Webb said: “Working together, and with the right political support, our goal is to help recalibrate the ticketing market to make it fairer and more transparent to fans.” 

Posted in Industry News