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FEAT planning international consumer awareness campaign against ticket touting

By | Published on Monday 24 October 2022

FEAT

The Face-value European Alliance For Ticketing, or FEAT for short, last week confirmed that it plans to launch an international consumer awareness initiative to educate music fans about the risks of buying tickets from unofficial secondary ticketing websites.

As the live sector has got back to business following the COVID-caused shutdowns, attention has returned to the unofficial resale of tickets at marked up prices by touts on websites like StubHub and Viagogo.

The rules regarding touting vary greatly from country to country. In some places, the resale of tickets without the permission of a show’s promoter, especially for profit, is basically against the law. In other countries, touts and the resale platforms need to follow certain rules, such as making it clear that a tout is not an official seller and that touted tickets could be cancelled by a promoter. And in other countries the rules are much more relaxed.

FEAT has been lobbying for the tighter regulation of for-profit ticket touting across Europe. That includes at an EU level where the recent Digital Services Act puts stronger obligations on online marketplaces to verify sellers and ensure better transparency for consumers.

The FEAT organisation had its first in-person general meeting since the start of the pandemic in Barcelona last week. It was agreed that the campaign for a Europe-wide ban of for-profit ticket touting would continue, alongside the consumer awareness initiative.

That is currently being developed by a FEAT-facilitated working group that also involves pan-European organisations like Pearle* Live Performance Europe, the European Arenas Association and the European Music Managers Alliance, as well as groups like BDKV in Germany and the FanFair Alliance in the UK.

Noting the EU’s DSA – plus the recent ruling in Germany in favour of Rammstein over Viagogo – FEAT director Neo Sala, also founder and CEO of Doctor Music, said last week: “It’s great to finally meet again in person … there’s a renewed energy to tackle touting, and we have been invigorated by positive changes in national and EU legislation over the last year – demonstrated not least in MCT-Agentur and Rammstein’s recent injunction against Viagogo in Germany”.



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