Survey: 69% Of Resellers Try To Profit

A survey conducted by Spanish event and ticketing company Ticketea found that more than one-fourth of ticket buyers in Spain resold an event ticket, with 69 percent trying to make a profit.  

Musicsnapper – Azkena Rock Spain

Ticketea compared the ticket prices of 80 different concerts, festivals and shows on ticket resale websites with the original price set by the promoters on Ticketea’s website.

“These events, from a total of 50 completely different top artists, have a price increase from 7 percent up to 1,000 percent. The average price difference currently stands at 147 percent,” the company stated.

It goes on to say that some of the events for which overpriced tickets are being resold aren’t even sold out, indicating that it’s the “ignorance of users, who are not aware that they are buying a resold ticket on unauthorized pages for a different (higher) cost than the official prices.” One in three respondents said they bought a resold ticket at least once, and 30 percent of those paid more than face value.

“When asked from whom they made the purchase, more than half of the respondents (51 percent) admitted that they acquired the ticket from an unknown person, through the internet advertisements, resale websites, street touting…”

Many ticket buyers therefore end up with fraudulent tickets, preventing them from entering the event. Of those who suffered such a fate, 78 percent said they were never able to recover their money.

Those who never bought a resold ticket said it was due to a lack of security (31 percent) or high prices (20 percent), respectively. While 67 percent of those queried thought the secondary market should be regulated by law, 55 percent were against the ban of resale and 79 percent were against a complete liberalization of the market.

The study was conducted online between May 16 and June 1, with 11,647 people between 18 and 80 years – 51 percent women, 49 percent men – taking part from all over Spain.

According to their data, three out of four resold tickets were for music concerts or festivals.

Ticketea founder and CEO Javier Andrés said “the current situation of resale in Spain is not caused by fans who sell a ticket because they cannot attend a concert, the real problem is the professional (profit-making) brokers who buy lots of tickets and capitalize by selling them at higher cost than face value, a price up to 1,000 percent greater than the original. They harm the fans, and they take advantage of artists’ talent as well as the risk that promoters and organizers of the events assume.”

Ticketea describes itself as “an online Spanish event platform, founded in 2010, aiming to simplify the organization and management of events and ticket sales, through selling tickets, event promotion, access control and RFID solutions. The company has a market leading position in the music festival and indie concert in Spain and Portugal.”