Brokers & Fans Lobby Against Paperless Tickets

A new pressure group called the Fan Freedom Project has launched with plans to educate consumers that paperless ticketing violates people’s rights to do whatever they want with their event tickets.

Ticketmaster’s new paperless ticketing initiative is the FFP’s main target, according to broker-affiliated newsletter Ticket News.
The new group claims the “closed-loop system” makes it virtually impossible to easily transfer a ticket.

The FFP, founded by consultant Jon Potter with the help of a growing list of consumer protection organizations, is not against paperless ticketing technology.

“Americans today enjoy extraordinary benefits due to a competitive and innovative secondary ticketing market: continuous access to events even after they have sold out, ticket prices of less than $1 for major professional sports and remarkably high-quality customer service,” the FFP Website explains.

“Yet all this is threatened by restrictive paperless ticketing, a technology that essentially keeps Ticketmaster’s and event producers’ hands on a ticket even after you buy it, by restricting your ownership, resale and transfer rights unless they approve (and of course they can choose to charge an additional fee).

“Under a restrictive paperless ticketing system, you will never again be able to compare ticket availability or prices on all the sites that you reach through a Google search before deciding whether to purchase.”

So far, the FFP is receiving assistance from the National Consumers League – which also protested the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger – Internet commerce advocates NetChoice and the National Association of Ticket Brokers.