Original article published on Financial Times (08/17/18) by Nic Fildes

Ticketmaster's recent move to shut down its GetMeIn and Seatwave online resale platforms in the U.K. and Europe is seen by the industry as the start of the British secondary ticketing market's downfall. Some industry insiders suspect the company's actions may have been primarily driven by the sites' declining profitability, as opposed to pressure from regulators, lawmakers, fans and musicians. However, Twickets founder Richard Davies expects that the ticketing sector will inevitably increase margins on the fees they charge for premium tickets in response to fans and artists' pushback. "Greed will take over," he predicts. Iridium director Reg Walker notes that online resale sites had encouraged the emergence of an army of "armchair touts" that carried out their activities on an "industrial scale." Still, he contends that Ticketmaster's actions should be viewed on a wider canvas, given that some resale sites are struggling to generate revenue on account of artists' opposition and regulatory crackdowns on the most notorious scalpers. Davies cites as an example Iron Maiden's coercion of Ticketmaster to strip the band's tickets from the resale sites it owned and setting up its own box office staffers to deal with fans with ticketing problems.

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