Harvey Goldsmith Enraged By Royal Albert Hall Resale

Renowned British concert promoter Harvey Goldsmith has complained about debenture holders at London’s Royal Albert Hall being able to resell tickets to shows despite provisions put in place to prevent the secondary market from acquiring tickets.

Greg Allen / GregAllenPhotos.com – David Gilmour
Madison Square Garden Arena, New York City

Goldsmith promoted five Royal Albert Hall concerts at the Hall Sept. 25-30. Tickets were personalized, which meant that punters had to enter their names and show photo ID at the entrance. According to the London Telegraph, the Hall’s debenture holders, who own a fifth of the venue’s 5,000 seats, were exempt from these provisions.

“The Telegraph can disclose that the charity [which owns the Royal Albert Hall] specifically circumvented a ban on ticket touts selling seats to David Gilmour concerts,” the paper wrote.

Harvey Goldsmith told Pollstar, “Those box/seat holders who do not wish to use them can offer them for sale via The Royal Albert Hall Box Office. This allows the promoter to get some financial benefit and knowledge of legitimate sale of those tickets.

“However, there are a small number of debenture holders who have been accumulating seats and boxes only for commercial gain by running a business of reselling those tickets to the highest bidder. “We as promoters, currently cannot prevent these bad practises, even when we have put in place controls to prevent the secondary market having tickets that are put on general sale. Our objection is to these unscrupulous debenture holders who use these tickets to support a system that we abhor.”

Via email, a spokesperson for the Royal Albert Hall explained that the venue was “funded by selling a proportion of the seats to members,” without which, the Hall would not have been built. These seats (representing just under one-quarter of the auditorium) are still in private ownership today and some have been passed down for generations.

“Yes, they receive tickets to around two-thirds of the events. Over time, so as to bolster the finances of the Hall, members have arranged to exclude themselves from around 140 of the most popular shows of the year.”

harveygoldsmith.com – Harvey Goldsmith

The spokesperson pointed out that the Hall’s members also pay an annual seat rate, with the money going to maintaining the building “for the nation’s benefit.”

In 2016 the Hall received £1.8 million in total via the seat rate. Members own their seats under UK law, so they can sell their tickets if they wish.

A statement released by the Royal Albert Hall reads: “members’ seats are their own private property with their rights enshrined in the Hall’s Royal Charter and Acts of Parliament; neither the Hall nor the promoter – who in this case has worked with the Hall for over 30 years and understands the arrangements perfectly well – has the ability to impose restrictions on how Members choose to use or dispose of their tickets.

“For David Gilmour, the promoter decided to put in place specific conditions of sale in regards to their own seats and as the Hall explains to all promoters, these conditions cannot be extended to the Members’ tickets. Therefore there was no negotiation on this issue.”