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Resident Advisor launches face-value ticket resale service
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 6 August 2014
Resident Advisor has announced a new ticket resale function on its website. Ticketholders for sold out events can now effectively get a refund if they find they are unable to attend, but selling at face value to a new buyer.
Speaking to CMU, RA co-founder Nick Sabine explained the inspiration for setting up the resale function: “We’ve seen first-hand the negative impact an insecure secondary market can have on our industry. Fans are over-paying for tickets, often fakes, and touts are profiteering off the back of a promoter’s hard work. The aim was to create a system for RA ticket buyers that eradicated this issue for sold out shows”.
Under the new system, fans who wish to return their tickets can add them to a pool of tickets being resold. As tickets on the site often increase in price as the event draws nearer, the tickets will be sold at the final tier price. The amount the buyer paid will then be returned to them when the ticket is sold, while any additional revenue will be passed on to the promoter.
And so far it seems to be working well, says Sabine: “Generally speaking the response has been hugely favourable from both fans and promoters, which is exactly what we had hoped. We’ve had the system running for a couple of specific events over the past week and have seen it working. For one event this week, tickets were being added to the resale queue and reselling within minutes”.
He added that he hopes that this move by Resident Advisor will prompt other ticket sellers to follow suit and make it easier to get a refund on tickets for sell out events, thus removing one of the excuses for the secondary ticketing market existing.
Though he conceded that there might be a long road ahead to convince the industry at large: “If this initiative sparks an adjustment in approach across the board, that would be a great outcome for our industry. However, as some of the major ticketing outlets have commercial interests in the secondary market, they don’t have as much incentive to create a fan-to-fan exchange that offers re-sold tickets guaranteed at face value”.
Further details on how to resell tickets purchased through Resident Advisor are available here.
