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FanFair criticises StubHub’s Q Awards sponsorship

The anti-touting alliance says the secondary ticketing site's choice to sponsor the awards comes at a "sensitive time" and is an "attempt to buy legitimacy"

By IQ on 14 Oct 2016

The 1975, Oslo Spektrum, Kim Erlandsen/NRK P3, Q Awards

Matthew Healy of The 1975 at at the Oslo Spektrum in April


image © Kim Erlandsen/NRK P3

Q Magazine yesterday announced the shortlist for the 2016 Q Awards, which see Coldplay and The 1975 leading the nominations with four apiece and the former battling it out with Savages, U2, Wolf Alice and Muse in the StubHub-sponsored best live act category.

So far, so innocuous – but not everyone is happy with StubHub’s involvement with one of the biggest events on the UK awards calendar. The FanFair Alliance, the anti-secondary ticketing group formed in July by a coalition of British managers, agents, promoters and other industry figures, today released the following statement, in which it decries the sponsorship as an attempt to “buy legitimacy” for the eBay-owned ticket resale site:

StubHub is a business complicit with harbouring professional ticket touts, ripping off fans and extracting millions of pounds each year from the UK’s music economy.

“This partnership is simply an attempt by StubHub to buy legitimacy. We will be writing to the managers of nominated artists to further highlight these concerns”

The company’s sponsorship of the 2016 Q Awards (now the StubHub Q Awards) comes at a particularly sensitive time, during an ongoing compliance review of secondary ticketing by the Competition and Markets Authority and with government due to respond to the recommendations of Professor Michael Waterson that would help clean up a notoriously under-regulated sector.

As the FanFair Alliance we have very real concerns that this partnership is simply an attempt by StubHub to buy legitimacy. We will be writing to the managers of nominated artists to further highlight these concerns, as well as the damage that industrial-scale online ticket touting is having on the wider music business.

IQ has contacted StubHub for a response.

The 27th Q Awards take place on 2 November at the Roundhouse in London.

 


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