Agents and managers from across the European music industry have signed an open letter urging the European Union’s Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath to expand the scope of the bloc’s in-development Digital Fairness Act. In particular, industry representatives are keen to see specific pan-European rules for secondary ticketing built into the new regulations.
The Digital Fairness Act presents an opportunity to address “anti-consumer” and “fraudulent” practices associated with ticket touting across Europe, says the letter. This includes better regulating online platforms that “facilitate” the “illicit marketing of tickets” at an “industrial scale”, in ways that “defraud tens of thousands of consumers across Europe each year”.
Some EU member states already regulate ticket touting, either by forcing more transparency onto touts and the resale platforms they use to sell their tickets - like StubHub and Viagogo - or in some cases with an outright ban on the unapproved resale of tickets for profit. Meanwhile in the UK, transparency rules have been in place for some time, and the government is now planning an outright ban.
However, whatever the rules within individual European countries, including EU member states, the letter insists there is also a need for a “Europe-wide approach that provides tools to ensure efficient protection” for both ticket buyers and event organisers “across borders”.
Booking agencies and management companies including CAA, UTA, WME, ATC and Ignition have signed the letter, alongside venues, promoters, festivals and trade organisations from across Europe.
It’s been organised by pan-European anti-touting group FEAT, with Managing Director Sam Shemtob saying that the current regulation of touting in the EU “isn’t working” and “the Digital Fairness Act offers a one-off chance to specifically address the problem”.
According to the European Commission, the upcoming Digital Fairness Act will introduce new regulations across the EU to “strengthen protection and digital fairness for consumers” while “ensuring a level playing field and simplifying rules for businesses in the EU”. Following a consultation last year, the new regulations will be drafted this year.
Six key priorities have already been defined, including banning so-called ‘drip pricing’ - where additional ‘fulfilment’ and other similar fees are added during the sales process - as well as the use of ‘deceptive designs’ by digital platforms to mislead customers.
The legislation will also include provisions to improve the regulation of influencer marketing and online contracts, and new online protections for children, including regarding the use of ‘gamification and reward mechanisms’ by apps and websites.
Some of those legislative priorities might apply to ticket resale platforms, which have frequently been accused of employing deliberately sneaky, confusing or underhand tactics to mislead consumers.
For example, making it appear to punters that they are buying tickets from official sellers when they are not, or hiding the true costs of touted tickets via ‘drip pricing’, and pressuring consumers into making impulse buying decisions via countdown timers and “in-demand” style pop-ups.
However, campaigners fighting against ticket touts would like more specific regulation of the ticket resale market. In theory the EU’s Digital Services Act, passed in 2022, introduced new pan-European rules that also applied to touts and touting platforms, but FEAT says those rules have proven ineffective.
A recent survey of FEAT members found that respondents in the live sector had raised reports with ticket resale platforms of 296 instances where touts had posted tickets for sale in a way that breached the rules. But, the new letter explains, in all but one of those cases the platforms ignored the complaints.
Under the Digital Services Act, complaints can be escalated to national regulators. FEAT members have done that in relation to 20 of the complaints, but have only received “a handful of responses”, with those always coming months after shows in question have taken place.
Europe needs “quicker” and “easily enforceable” methods for tackling rule-breaking ticket touts, the letter says, otherwise “event organisers will remain worse off than before the Digital Service Act was conceived, as they spend time and resources on fruitless bureaucracy”.
Among the trade bodies backing the open letter is the UK’s Entertainment Agents’ Association, whose President Erica Crompton says “we strongly endorse this call for decisive EU-wide action. Unauthorised resale continues to mislead consumers and damage public confidence. The Digital Fairness Act must address resale head-on to restore fairness, trust and transparency. This is a vital opportunity to safeguard the live events economy”.