TICKETMASTER EXITS SECONDARY MARKET IN EUROPE

Ticketmaster is shutting down its resale sites GET ME IN! and Seatwave in Europe, replacing them with a fan-to-fan face value or less ticket exchange service starting in October. The move arrives after years of lobbying by the British music business over what some perceive as unfair profiteering.

Beginning today, no new events will be listed on GET ME IN! or Seatwave; soon, Viagogo and StubHub will be the only secondary ticketing sites active in Europe. Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, acquired GET ME IN! and Seatwave in 2008 and 2014 respectively.

The move follows an increasing amount of scrutiny on the selling practices of secondary websites from the U.K. Government and the Advertising Standards Authority. The latter recently introduced new rules to combat the “misleading presentation of pricing,” and in April, the government boosted legislation to provide consumers with greater transparency when buying second-hand tickets.

Discussing the move, Andrew Parsons, Managing Director of Ticketmaster U.K., said: “Our #1 priority is to get tickets into the hands of fans so that they can go to the events they love. … Closing down our secondary sites and creating a ticket exchange on Ticketmaster has always been our long-term plan. We’re excited to launch our redesigned website which will make buying and selling tickets fast and simple, with all tickets in the same place.”

Once the service is up and running, Ticketmaster will set the maximum that can be charged for a ticket and there will not be charge to the seller.

A spokesperson from anti-ticket tout association FanFair Alliance said: “While enforcement action is still urgently required to clamp down on rogue operators such as Viagogo, we are now much closer to a genuine transformation of the secondary market—where large-scale online touts are locked out, where innovation can flourish, and the resale of tickets is made straightforward, transparent and consumer friendly. We look forward to the roll out from October this year and seeing how these changes work in practice.”