Forget politicians: The biz must take control of ticketing

This year we’ve seen lawmakers around the world commit to the banning of ticket bots, marking a positive stride in the fight against firms that hoover up primary tickets with the intention of reselling them at four or five times the face value.

Laws against such practices will make it harder for these large-scale ticket touts to operate, but, as the record business has learnt over the past decade in its battle against piracy, the legislative route is often long, littered with pitfalls and usually only provides a partial solution.

Record execs will remember the headaches that surrounded the implementation of the Digital Economy Act in 2010 and are more likely to point to platforms like Spotify and Apple Music as the primary drivers of legitimate music consumption in a new digital landscape – although work to stamp out copyright infringement is, of course, still ongoing.

Legislation is a positive show of intent but its practical effectiveness hinges on how it is implemented and enforced in the real world. The Tixserve team has a history in the card payment and mobile top-up sectors, and we’ve seen how the targets of anti-abuse measures will often find ways to circumvent checks and blocks to continue earning their ill-gotten gains.

We also need to think about who is going to build the fences that keep touts out. Again, look to similar discussions elsewhere in the music biz, with rightsholders, legislators, ISPs and platforms such as YouTube constantly bickering over whose job it is to make sure copyrights are protected online. The job of enforcement is often passed on to parties who are less than willing to allocate resources to the task, reducing what could be tough legislation to lame-duck lip service.

But the music business doesn’t have to rely on outsiders to reclaim ticketing revenue while creating a compelling user experience. We’ve seen Team Sheeran recently track down and cancel thousands of tickets being flogged by online touts. But our industry is seeing the emergence of next-generation ‘track-and-trace’ paperless ticketing that can stamp out abuse and fraud from the off, regardless of legislation.

While the backing of lawmakers is welcome, the music business’s most effective response to challenges has always been to take matters into its own hands

Tixserve’s paperless ticket-fulfilment platform uses a triple-lock system that links the ticket to a buyer’s name, their phone and their phone’s unique ID, leaving no way through for touts/bots and fraudsters. And it provides this cast-iron security while improving the experience and flow of fans as they pass through the gates at venues without the hassle of having to produce credit cards and photo ID.

Crucially, Tixserve is a white-label platform, which means we put our technology into the hands of rightsholders, venues, ticket agents, D2C platforms – whoever wants to manage their ticket fulfilment in a modern, intelligent, secure and streamlined way. Tixserve technology allows the rights owner(s) of an event to permit ticket resale or not. Any resale would be controlled and regulated in a transparent and ethical manner by the right owner(s) via the configurable Tixserve platform. Unlike existing paper tickets, the secure Tixserve digital tickets cannot be resold or transferred without the permission of the rights owner(s).

But security isn’t the only factor the live business needs to consider when it comes to reclaiming control over the ticketing sector. With the right tech, the live industry can go a step further and redefine what a ticket is in the modern era.

Through branded apps and portals powered by technology, fans are able to connect with artists and gain access to exclusive opportunities and merchandise. Meanwhile, ticket sellers are able to capture an unprecedented level of consumer data allowing for direct marketing that will drive further sales and revenue.

The music industry, as a whole, has faced challenging times in recent years, as outsiders have sought to use new technology to scalp revenue from creators and the teams that support them. While the backing of lawmakers is important and welcome, the music business’s most effective response to these threats has always been to harness technology itself and take matters into its own hands.

Patrick Kirby is managing director of white-label paperless ticketing platform Tixserve.

Ticket bots: Hidden menace or red herring?

While ticket bots – automated software used to hoover up concert tickets to then resell – remain legal in most of the world, the last 12 months have seen official sentiment in several major markets shift towards prohibition.

The state of New York was the first to criminalise the usage of bots, with legislation introduced by Carl Heastie and Marcos Crespo providing for up to a year in prison for offenders. The Canadian province of Ontario followed suit in September, and the US as a whole outlawed bots in December with then-president Barack Obama’s signing of the Better Online Ticket Sales – or Bots – Act into law.

The UK, meanwhile, is set to soon introduce its own ban, while Adelaide senator Nick Xenophon is pushing for anti-bot legislation in Australia.

The vast majority of those working in the live music industry agree on the need for a ban on bots – including, tellingly, secondary ticketing giants StubHub and Ticketmaster (Seatwave, Ticketmaster Resale, TicketExchange, Get Me In!) – but there are concerns among some anti-touting activists that a singular focus on bots could detract from the conversation around what they see as a fundamentally broken ticketing market.

Speaking to the UK parliament committee on ‘ticket abuse’ earlier this month, Rob Wilmshurst, CEO of Vivendi Ticketing/See Tickets – which recently launched its own face-value ticket exchange, Fan2Fan – said he believes bots have been a “red herring” in the debate over secondary ticketing in the UK. “We’ve added more technology to thwart them [bots], but we don’t see conversion rates dropping,” he told MPs.

Similarly, Adam Webb, of anti-secondary campaign group FanFair Alliance, responded to the US’s bot ban with a note of caution, highlighting that the legislation was “supported by companies who run secondary ticketing services, and who benefit directly from mass-scale ticket touting”.

Are ticket bots, then, a straw man on which the big secondaries are happily pinning the blame for headline-grabbing $3,000 Adele tickets, or could a global ban on bots actually be effective in eliminating price-gouging in the secondary market?

“Bots aren’t the only way tickets end up on the secondary market”

Reg Walker, of events security firm Iridium, says any legal initiatives aimed at combatting bots “can only be a good thing”. He concedes that while there are “systemic problems in the ticket industry as a whole”, including ticket agencies with a “foot in both camps” (primary and secondary), “any legislation that goes any way towards levelling the playing field must be welcomed”.

Walker cautions, however, that “legislation is only as good as the amount of enforcement that goes into supporting it”. A major problem with the law in the UK, he tells IQ, is that the onus is on secondary sites themselves to report attempts to buy tickets using bots: “Is there any incentive to report bot attacks when the same company may well end up, by intention or inadvertently, being a net beneficiary of that activity?” he asks.

The chief executive of the UK’s Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers (STAR), Jonathan Brown, agrees on the importance of ticketing sites reporting all bot attacks. “Bots are certainly one way that touts get hold of tickets, and it’s great that there is action specifically on this issue,” he explains. “However, we have always said that this also needs to go alongside far greater understanding and technical defences against such attacks – and, of course, a need for attacks or suspected attacks to be reported.”

Legislation targeting bots is a “great first step”, says Ant Taylor, the founder and CEO of Lyte, which powers the new ‘fan-to-fan’ ticket exchange from Ticketfly, a supporter of the bot ban in the US. “The public has experienced longstanding frustration from not having access to tickets for their favourite artists, or having to pay exorbitant prices to do so.”

Taylor highlights the importance of fans genuinely unable to attend a show having a “viable technological alternative”, such as Ticketfly/Lyte, to resell their ticket. “We’ve integrated Lyte directly with a primary ticketing company,” he continues, “so their venue and promoter partners now have complete control of the fan experience. This keeps the money in the hands of those who contribute to these incredible live event experiences and away from scalpers who purely profit off them.”

Patrick Kirby, managing director of recently launched white-label platform Tixserve, cautions that overemphasis on bots could lead to a spike in “low-tech” crime such as counterfeiting. “An unintended consequence of the ban on bots might be an increase in the fraudulent duplication or counterfeiting of tickets, which is a low-tech activity when tickets continue to be paper-based,” he tells IQ.

“Professional touts already use other, non-bot, methods of acquiring primary tickets for the secondary market”

Kirby says the effectiveness of banning bots will depend largely on the “extent to which bot operators will seek to circumvent the new legislation. The previous experience of the Tixserve team in the card payments and mobile-airtime distribution sectors is that the targets of anti-abuse measures always look to find creative ways of protecting their lucrative, ill-gotten incomes. Sometimes, it can be akin to pinning down a lump of jelly.”

Walker believes, however, that it’s extremely easy to tell when a site has fallen victim to a bot attack.

“We live in a technological age, and there is an overdependence on computer programs and algorithms to detect this activity,” he comments. Bot attacks are “so easy to spot on primary ledgers”, says Walker – providing ticket agencies actually take the time to look. “We haven’t found a single case, bar one, where a primary or secondary ticket agent has gone to police or Trading Standards and asked them to investigate,” he explains.

“Bottom line: it [banning bots] is not a silver bullet,” comments Adam Webb, who as FanFair campaign manager welcomed plans by the British government to ban bots as part of its implementation of the Waterson report.

“Moves by government[s to] criminalise the misuse of technology to bulk-buy tickets are an important and welcome step,” Webb tells IQ. “However […] not every tout has this sort of software in their armoury. There are many alternative ways to access large volumes of inventory…

“That’s why FanFair, in our response, was keen to give equal weight to the other elements of government’s announcement, particularly the blanket acceptance of Professor Waterson’s recommendations and suggestion of further actions to improve transparency in this market. (Waterson’s recommendations largely centre on proper reinforcement of the 2015 Consumer Rights Act, which obliges resellers to list the original face value, seat/row numbers and any ticket restrictions.)

“Bottom line: It is not a silver bullet”

Kirby adds that banning bots ignores “professional touts [who] already use other non-bot methods of acquiring primary tickets for placement on the secondary market”. In response to bot bans, resellers could, says Kirby, “ramp up the practice of using teams of people masquerading as genuine fans to buy significant amounts of tickets using multiple identities, addresses and credit cards”.

Stuart Cain, managing director of NEC Group’s The Ticket Factory, agrees with Walker that “banning bots is just one part of a much wider story”, but says any legislation “that allows for greater transparency in the market and help to stop fans being conned is a positive”. “There’s still a way to go, but [banning bots] is a promising first step when it comes to the industry finally cleaning up its act,” he comments.

While Walker praises the recent raft of anti-bot measures as “fantastic” – and the recent British legislation, in particular, as having real “teeth” – he warns against the tendency to think of banning ticket bots as a panacaea to sky-high prices on the secondary market.

“The danger is that while we have all this focus on bots and software, the other structural issues in ticketing could be ignored,” he concludes. “Bots aren’t the only way tickets end up on the secondary market.”

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