Business

Festival Group Goes After Ticket Re-sellers

More than 50 industry executives, artists, promoters, and festivals have signed onto the Association of Independent Festivals’ Fair Ticketing Charter.

In an effort to stem the tide of secondary-market ticket sales through popular websites like eBay and StubHub, the London-based Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) last week released a Fair Ticketing Charter opposing the practice and calling for legislation to curb re-sellers’ activities.

The whole secondary-ticketing situation does make me really angry.

“The whole secondary-ticketing situation does make me really angry,” AIF cofounder Rob da Bank told Complete Music Update. “I just don’t feel many of the people paying vastly inflated prices actually understand the mechanics behind it, and secondly because the people profiting are doing so driven by pure greed.”

There have been many attempts in the United States and abroad to pass legislation to curb the growth of the secondary-ticketing market, but none has succeeded. AIF hopes that the amount of support that the charter is attracting will lead to a different result.

“We believe there are strong arguments for legislation to curb the activities of unofficial ticket-sellers,” the charter states. “Until such legislation is enacted, we believe the entire live entertainment industry should further increase its efforts to protect fans.”

Has your organization been successful in bringing people in your industry together to rally for a common cause?

(photo by marfis75/Flickr)

Rob Stott

By Rob Stott

Rob Stott is a contributing editor for Associations Now. MORE

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