Revenue / 05.21.18
Taylor Swift Doing Better Job at Stopping Scalpers Than Ontario's New Ticket Rules: Experts
Access Staff
Original article published on Global News (Canada) (05/21/18) by David Friend
Ontario, Canada, will impose a price cap on resales of live-event tickets on July 1, but some experts are crediting pop singer Taylor Swift with doing a better job to combat scalpers. Her team is listing tickets on Ticketmaster near prices they believe the market demands, which are much higher than what a stadium concert typically costs. The move seeks to price scalpers and automated bots out of the secondary market, while allowing the artist to gain a bigger profit from face-value tickets. Meanwhile, Ontario's Ticket Sales Act would bar ticket resales at more than 50 percent above face value, with enforcement mainly reliant on consumers filing complaints. Author Dean Budnick anticipates the measure's effect on scalpers to be "negligible," as it fails to account for the near-impossibility of enforcing laws on resellers who operate outside of provincial jurisdiction. He suggests Swift's strategy could prove more effective: Although some fans were chagrined that premium seat prices for her "Reputation" tour were significantly hiked, more dedicated fans did not appear to be deterred from purchasing tickets. Pollstar estimates that Swift has already doubled the sales she made during her 2015 tour. University of Toronto professor Catherine Moore thinks Swift's tactics approach dynamic pricing, where prices are set and revised according to demand and consumers' ability to pay.
Read the full story on the Global News (Canada) website.
Tags: Music , Ticketmaster , Reselling , Regulations , News , Secondary Ticketing