Ticketmaster will close its secondary ticketing websites later this year, its been announced.
Seatwave and Get Me In – which allow you to offload unwanted tickets – will shut down for good in October, preventing opportunistic touts from making further money out of the sites.
In the past, the system has frequently been exploited by those who buy up large amounts of tickets and sell them on for inflated prices.
We know that fans are tired of seeing others snap up tickets just to resell for a profit on secondary websites, so we have taken action, said Andrew Parsons, head of Ticketmaster UK.
Closing down our secondary sites and creating a ticket exchange on Ticketmaster has always been our long-term plan.
Secondary ticketing outlets like Seatwave, Get Me In and Viagogo have come under fire in the past for giving fans a rough deal, with huge stars like Ed Sheeran openly criticising them.
Sheeran went one step further recently when he took action which meant some fans were turned away at the gates.
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Many fans were upset to miss out, but Sheeran defended the policy, saying the only people it is going to harm in the end is the touts.
People just need to start taking a stance and within two or three years companies like Viagogo are going to be kaput, he added.
Now Ticketmaster has appeared to follow Sheerans actions by axing its own resale arm – but theyre not stamping out secondary ticketing completely.
Under the new system, people will be allowed to sell tickets directly on Ticketmaster, where a simple click will release tickets back into the market.
However, unlike before, users will only be allowed to charge the original price or less – plus a 15% surcharge on every ticket to cover booking fees paid by the seller.
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Selling tickets through Ticketmaster is really simple, said Parsons.
We do all the hard work and outline the maximum that can be charged for the ticket – and it doesnt cost fans a penny to sell them.
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