Campaign group FanFair Alliance (FFA) has welcomed Ticketmaster’s decision to close Seatwave and Get Me In!.
The music industry group, which campaigns against ticket touting, said the ticketing giant’s decisions would benefit the public and artists.
However, it noted that tough action was still required against those operators still seeking to profiteer from the ticketing sector.
A FanFair Alliance spokesperson told TheTicketingBusiness: “After a long campaign to change the UK ticketing market and to put power into the hands of artists and their fans, the Fanfair Alliance warmly welcomes this move by Ticketmaster.
“While enforcement action is still urgently required to clamp down on rogue operators such as Viagogo, we are now much closer to a genuine transformation of the secondary market – where large-scale online touts are locked out, where innovation can flourish, and the resale of tickets is made straightforward, transparent and consumer-friendly.
“We look forward to the roll out from October this year and seeing how these changes work in practice.”
Digital Minister Margot James also welcomed the news, adding: “We want real fans to be able to see their favourite artists and events at a fair price.
“This is a welcome move from Ticketmaster and shows that they’re following our lead and taking a tough stance on cracking down on unacceptable behaviour in the secondary ticket market.”
There has also been reaction from fellow ticketing operators in the UK.
Twickets boss Richard Davies told TheTicketingBusiness that Ticketmaster’s move towards a fair value fan-to-fan marketplace “validates” his own company’s model.
Davies said: “Overall, the reaction, appreciation and sentiment towards our model and brand has been overwhelming from our community and we fully expect them to continue to trade through Twickets.
“We welcome the move by Ticketmaster as a step in the right direction. Twickets remains the only ticketing platform that trades resale inventory for any event across the world at face value, regardless of who the primary ticketing agency was. This is important to both artists and the consumer in providing clarity to the market as a one-stop fair solution.
“It’s why we’ve received support from 100’s of global artists, festivals, venues, sporting organisations as well as ticketing agencies such as Eventbrite, The Ticket Factory, Gigantic and Myticket.co.uk. Therefore we welcome the opportunity to work with Ticketmaster in supporting this mission.”
VibeTickets, a ‘fair value’ resale marketplace, has long been a critic of resale sites. This morning, in a tweet, the company celebrated the decision, but suggested “real fans” would not be affected.
HOOORAY!
Ticketmaster have announced that they're closing down their resale sites @Seatwave and @GETMEIN (not that any real fans used them anyway 😏)
But don't worry, we'll still be here. Helping you find tickets and sell spares WITHOUT charging fees! #GoodVibesOnly #Ticketing pic.twitter.com/Gn4IJnQvPm
— Vibe Tickets (@VibeTickets) August 13, 2018
Ben Sebborn, co-founder and director of Skiddle, said: “We are delighted that Ticketmaster are making a substantial effort to tackle the touts by closing down their exploitative secondary sites – Get Me In! and Seatwave.
“By introducing their new resale platform, we hope the ticket buying experience is more positive for music fans, who have had a raw deal to date.
“In 2016, Skiddle introduced our own Re:Sell platform to make face-value secondary ticketing fairer and more flexible. Even though it has taken some time, we are pleased to see the largest outlets finally following suit and responding to industry and consumer pressure.”
Music fans also broadly welcomed the news, with some wondering about the future of other resale sites, such as eBay-owned StubHub and Viagogo.
Over to you now @StubHub @eBay get your house in order and follow suit!! Then the government can ban @viagogo and we as fans can finally stopped being ripped off!!
— CaptainCod (@CaptainCodTips) August 13, 2018
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