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Story URL: http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39125758,00.htm

Wembley Arena slams eBay over rogue ticket touts
Has the music industry finally had enough?

By Andy McCue

Published: Tuesday 09 November 2004

The UK's leading music concert arenas are calling for eBay to take action over the increased number of ticket touts and rogue sellers using the online auction site.

Touts buying huge blocks of tickets for popular events such as Glastonbury and other high profile music concerts that quickly sell out are increasingly using eBay to sell the tickets on at higher prices.

Peter Tudor, director of sales and marketing at Wembley Arena, told silicon.com that the practice is harming the music industry with one of the main problems being that often the concert appears to be sold out when it is not.

"Touts cause events to sell out quickly but it is false demand," he said.

He claims the touts then use eBay because it is easier to offload higher volumes of tickets, which allows them to move off the streets and onto the relative anonymity of the web.

"Touts bored of standing outside in the venue in the rain now set up a website," he said.

Fraudsters who sell the same concert ticket to several eBay bidders and tell them to collect from the ticket office are also causing a problem for venues. Tudor said it is left for venues to tell people who may have paid thousands of pounds, as happened with a recent Madonna concert, that there are in fact no tickets for them.

Tudor also heads up the National Arenas Association, which represents 18 other UK venues, and he said there is a groundswell of opinion among them that the problem needs to be tackled.

"It is something we as a music industry have to deal with," he said.

Manually policing individual eBay auctions in order to cancel tickets being sold is too time-consuming and so the venues and promoters are looking to put pressure on eBay to alter its policies on these auctions, Tudor said.

But eBay claims its existing auction policies provide enough protection for buyers and also allow ticket promoters the opportunity to get illegal listings removed.

A statement issued by the company said: "Promoters can contact sellers directly through the site and ask that listings are removed if contracts have been breached. Moreover, if the promoters obtain a court order or an injunction against any seller, eBay will always act in accordance with any court order. Ticket promoters should get in touch with eBay with any concerns."