Tens of thousands of Canadians have signed a petition urging Canada’s federal and provincial governments to regulate the resale of concert tickets.
The petition “Regulate Concert Ticket Resales In Canada” began on November 19. Since then, it has amassed over 11,000 signatures, with its next goal at 15,000.
“Ticket reselling is broken in Canada, and it is long past time for regulation,” wrote organizer Shannon McKarney.
The petition was born out of frustrations with the ticket sales process for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour dates in Canada.
Swifties had to face being waitlisted by Ticketmaster for the presale when tickets finally dropped.
In the petition, McKarney blames the “unregulated and shady resale market” for the inaccessible tickets.
“Knowing the global value of these tickets, a significant portion of these applicants were not actual Taylor Swift fans planning to attend a concert, but rather individuals whose intent was ONLY to resell tickets for profit,” she claims.
“These well-organized and technologically savvy groups submitted millions of applications to Verified Fan, knowing each ticket they could obtain was a windfall worth thousands of dollars.”
And when those who weren’t blessed with presale codes finally got access to the tickets, they were met with resale prices up to a whopping $17,000.
Even as the concert dates finally arrived in Toronto, Canadians who were trying to get last-minute tickets were still met with resale prices of over $20,000.
Resellers are even making bank on listening-only tickets for Swift’s final round of shows in Vancouver.
“In any other context, this is price gouging, and it is illegal in many situations,” McKarney wrote on Change.org.
She added that the practice is “unethical” as resellers target specific events, which “directly creates scarcity, which in turn manipulates market prices.”
“Reselling also leads to significant fraud, as vulnerable people desperate to find affordable resale tickets are frequently taken in by scams,” reads the petition.
McKarney’s infographic below gives examples of some of the jacked-up prices she saw on the resale site StubHub.
Change.org
The petition calls on federal and provincial governments to “intervene and legislate restrictions” on concert ticket resales.
It suggests the following restrictions:
- Outlawing ticket resale for over face value of tickets, with the provision for a small service fee to cover card fees or exchange rates
- Demanding transparency from ticket vendors to clarify who can access tickets on their platform
- Demanding ticket vendors such as LiveNation, whose market cap currently stands at $30 Billion, invest directly in anti-fraud and anti-bot measures to ensure tickets end up in the hands of fans, not on dark-market resale sites
“Let’s put an end to this systematic exploitation,” the petition concludes.
What are your thoughts? Should ticket reselling be regulated, or is it fair game? Let us know in the comments.