Features
Ticketmaster Clears Up Paperless Confusion
Ticketmaster UK managing director Chris Edmonds has been quick to clear up any misunderstanding caused by a Daily Mail story saying the company “buckled to pressure” and is setting up an exchange for people to resell paperless tickets at face value.
He said he was shocked when he first read the daily tabloid’s piece, which said the pressure came from fans, event organisers and artists wanting to stop tickets being resold at much more than face value.
Having launched a paperless ticket in order to block reselling on the secondary market, Edmonds told Pollstar he acknowledges that it can cause problems for ticket-buyers unable attend the show.
When a customer buys a paperless ticket, it cannot be resold. In order to collect their ticket, fans need photo ID and the card used to purchase it.
“We did say that we needed to find a way of doing something about this, but we can’t do it any way that’s likely to undermine the original purpose of the paperless ticket,” Edmonds explained. “We had the two complaints from the Mail and there has been a handful of others and we did say that it’s something that we’re looking at.”
However, when the story came out it said Live Nation is “now developing a face value ticket exchange for paperless tickets,” because of “pressure that was put on Ticketmaster and the rest of the ticket selling industry” by Channel 4’s Dispatches revealing that tickets are being supplied direct to the secondary market.”
It said the exchange would be part of a new website Ticketmaster’s developing.
“We haven’t been under any pressure and it has nothing to do with ‘Dispatches,’” Edmonds explained, pointing out that the story was the first he’d heard about the company developing a new website.
Although the ticketless system has proved popular with bands such as