Amazon Tickets has no intention of entering the secondary ticketing market, but wants to improve transparency in the primary sector.
Geraldine Wilson, the general manager of the online retail giant’s UK ticketing division, said it is committed to “fair prices for fans” with booking fees included in tickets’ face value.
Wilson told delegates at the 29th International Live Music Conference (ILMC) in London last week that concert ticketing is an “obvious” area of expansion for Amazon given the ecommerce giant’s strength in physical musical sales and streaming. “Our customers love music, and this was an obvious place to go,” she said, according to the IQ entertainment news website.
She criticised the practice of charging booking fees on tickets at check-out, saying she “personally [has] a real problem” with hidden charges. “We always show an all-inclusive price,” she commented.
Amazon Tickets launched in the UK in 2015 and late last year unveiled plans to expand in Europe, Asia and potentially the US. It said it wanted to become “the world’s premier destination” for tickets and has plans to integrate ticket sales into its Prime membership programme.
Wilson was adamant Amazon was not going to move into the secondary ticketing market.
She added: “We are all about getting tickets to fans in our customer base at a fair price. I think it [ticket touting] is wrong at every level.”
Amazon Tickets appointed former Warner Music and Live Nation executive Lawrence Peryer as a director, based in Seattle, in January.
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