Promenade, a music & technology blog, penned by Eoghan O'Neill.
Rock stars seeking slice of tickets resold online?
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Posted by: eoghanFriday, December 07, 2007

Ticket ToutsNot happy with pegging concert ticket prices at ever increasing prices, some of the biggest names in the music industry now want to now get a slice of profits made on tickets resold on the web. They are proposing that a 'Resale Rights Society' (RRS) is established that will slap a levy on the sale price of every ticket resold on sites like eBay.

Apparently Radiohead, Robbie Williams and Arctic Monkeys are among the 400 artists who think this is a good idea. With a straight face the chairman-elect of the RRS Marc Marot (a former chief exec of Island Records) tried to claim that the move was not to pad out the already fleshy wallets of millionaire rock stars but instead to help new artists who have a greater dependency on gigs for their income. Yeah, right. If that's the case then why not come out and say that no money pulled in by the RRS will be given to a wealthy established artist? In any case any new artist who finds tickets to their gigs being resold online for more than face value will be well chuffed and can start considering themselves as having made it, secure too in the knowledge that financial worries are to be a thing of the past.

But the most outrageous justification given by Marot was that "it is unacceptable that not a penny of the £200m in transactions generated by the resale of concert tickets in the UK is returned to investors in the live music industry." Following the same logic a property developer (i.e. an investor in the property industry) could claim it is entitled to a cut of any profit made when a house they build and sell is subsequently sold on. Brass as monkeys property developers may be, but they know that they'd never get away with such a scam. However, this loose affiliation of millionaire rock stars who 'invest in the live music industry' think they can do just that. Who do these guys think they are?

As far as I know absolutely nobody out there in the free market is offering something with a price tag that says 'it costs this amount, but if (because I don'r offer a possilbity of a reimbursement ) you then go and sell it to someone else, you must give me a slice of your sale price' (Update: Aidan puts me straight on this point below in the comment section where he points out that a % of a painting sale or a soccer player transfer is passed back to the artist / original soccer club). That sort of mentality is more at home with pyramid schemes than the free market.

Yes, it is true that there are some problems with the reselling of tickets on the interweb but trying to just grab a slice of an illicit cake is simply not a credible way of addressing the issue. If they were really serious about this, these artists & their management teams would get together to put in place preventative measures to stop, or at least reduce the numbers of, tickets being resold online (such as a mechanism for reimbursing a fan who has bought a ticket and unexpectedly finds s/he cannot go to the gig, this being something that could be provided for a modest charge offered on an opt-in basis at the time of the booking, just like it is with many airlines).

In the meantime anybody thinking of buying a ticket online via the likes of eBay just needs to do as they would for any other purchase: research what is being sold, who is selling it and for what price. If they are comfortable on all levels then go ahead and make the purchase. The same Caveat Emptor approach is valid be it for the purchase of a tube of toothpaste, a semi-d in Leopardstown or a ticket to see Led Zep in London.

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Re: Rockstars seeking a slice from online ticket touts?   By aidan on Thursday, December 06, 2007
Unless I'm mistaken, there are precedents: I believe that in certain cases if a painting is resold, a cut of the resale price goes to the artist or his/her estate. Also, football clubs usually receive a percentage of any future transfer fee of a young player they sell (some Irish clubs have benefitted from this). But perhaps these aren't analagous. Would second-hand CD and book shops be affected by this, or do they already pay some sort of flat rate to the IMRO, etc?
Re: Rockstars seeking a slice from online ticket touts?   By eoghan on Thursday, December 06, 2007
Aidan, you're right, there is something about a cut from the sale of paintings being passed on to artists or their estates. I'd forgotten about that. Have to say I've no idea of the detail of how that is done (as for soccer transfers I'll take your word for it, soccer is something I have neither clue about nor interest in). So it could be argued that some sort of precedence exists. But does it really? A piece of art (and a soccer player) can grow in importance (and value) over time so why indeed not pass a percentage of each sale to whoever first created/discovered the painting/soccer player. But a concert ticket? It entitles the bearer the right to be present at a fleeting moment in time, probably 1.5 hours and if you are lucky 2 hours or more. And then what? Nothing. That's it. There's nothing that endures (although some would argue there is the memory of, or a feeling of exhileration thanks to, the performance but I am always reminded of what Geldof said back in the eighties about the new-found optimism of U2 audiences lasting as long as the bus-ride home…). Nor is there, after the gig is over with, anything tangible in your hands that has the promise of future brilliance (like a skilled soccer player you buy off the top shelf or wherever it is you get them these days). No, rock stars and their management in my eyes definitely still do not deserve a cut of anyone reselling a ticket to one of their gigs.
Re: Rock stars seeking a slice from online ticket touts?   By aidan on Friday, December 07, 2007
The argument to differentiate between concerts/entertainment and other products/services doesn't stand up, I'm afraid. Just because a concert is intangible and 'unenduring' doesn't make it any less of a commodity. I think this issue is being clouded by the perception of the music industry as money-grabbing chancers (which they may well be - but it's beside the point. No one begrudges the small-time football team or artist their payday in analagous circumstances). And gigs are the most lucrative thing for an act, more than recording sales; therefore it's no surprise that today's big-corporation record companies, always looking for double-digit profit growth, are going to maximise their earnings in ever more creative ways. Finally, does this proposal just apply to selling ABOVE face value, or even to face-value/loss-making sales? If a €50 ticket goes for €200 online, no surprise that the act/promoter/label will feel sore about that extra €150 (and which answers the point about whether tickets increase in value or not - they clearly do, depending on demand).
Re: Rock stars seeking a slice from online ticket touts?   By admin on Friday, December 07, 2007
Aidan, you are absolutely right, no one begrudges the small-time football team or artist their payday in analogous circumstances. But here I just don't think the circumstances under the microscope are analogous. A group on top of their commercial / critical game who knows their performance will sell out does not compare to a small-time football team that nurtured a promising talent when he was still growing bum fluff or a penniless artist+easel slaving over a canvas that in time becomes accepted as being a work of considerable art, etc. Commodities they are in each case but there the comparison ends, IMHO. Anyways why could there not be a bit of imagination from these bands when it comes to this question. For example why don't these bands announce a gig and sell the tickets to the public via an auction, with the tickets going to the highest bidders? If a band wants to pocket what his audience is prepared to pay then that's the obvious route to go, not trying to scrape a bit off whatever a ticket makes when resold. Does this proposal only apply to selling above face value? I presume so, although none of the press reports I've read have said it does (there was an article in the Daily Telegraph that did specifically talk of a "percentage levy" without indicating if the % kicked in only above the face value or was applied even for below face value sales).

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