Leadership / 05.23.19

Ticketmaster and Vivid Seats Want the Government to Ban Scalper Bots

Access Staff

iPolitics (05/14/19) Pinkerton, Charlie

Both Ticketmaster and Vivid Seats told Canada's government that they support a ban on automated ticket-scalping bots. "We strongly favored bans on bots in other jurisdictions as we believe it protects consumers, improves transparency, and helps eliminate black-market ticket sales," said Vivid Seats' Jonas Beallor. "Taking it a step further, we also encourage governments in all jurisdictions to enforce these bans." Also favored by Vivid Seats is legislation on holdbacks, which are commonly used by primary market sellers to withhold a percentage of event tickets from the public.
Ticketmaster Canada Chair Patti-Anne Tarlton said her company employs holdbacks as a sales mechanism in compliance with distributor agreements, and would not back laws dictating the practice or the necessary reportage of how many tickets remain for specific events. "It's posing as consumer friendly, but its actually trying to build in scarcity," she stated. "So then it promotes the anxiety of 'I've got to go get my ticket' and then it also has the tendency of inflating price."

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Tags: Ticketmaster , Reselling , Bots , News , Secondary Ticketing