Japanese Industry Against Scalpers

About “20 entities, including music and entertainment production companies,” as well as several ticket sellers, will soon set up a “council” for the purpose of fighting resales of overpriced tickets, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. 

AP Photo / Eric Gay – Need Tickets?

For the past several years, Japan’s concert industry has been trying to prevent the huge markup of tickets available on resale and auction sites. Industry experts value the resale market at 60 billion yen ($540 million) and think it will grow to 80 billion yen by 2019.

Individual concert organizers and talent production companies have introduced their own face recognition system to restrict entry of resold ticket holders, but it has only been done on a case-by-case basis.

The council plans to start its own official resale site sometime in May by creating a system where electronic tickets are issued and can be resold only on the site itself. It will also place a cap on the resale price.

The Tokyo Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games will take part in the council and introduce its own system for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

One of the issues the council must tackle first is elderly consumers, many of whom don’t have smartphones and thus can’t access e-tickets.