Police call for ticket resale legal regulation

By Chi Chi Izundu
Newsbeat entertainment reporter

The Metropolitan Police's specialist ticket fraud unit has called on the government to introduce legislation around the resale of tickets to gigs and sports events.

Operation Podium tackled ticket fraud at the 2012 Olympics and looked at online ticket fraud for other events.

Their report concludes that self regulation may not be enough but government intervention could help transparency.

The unit is due to disband next month.

It has long been a debate, especially in the music industry, with some music bosses suggesting a profit cap on the re-sale of a ticket.

Chris Wolstenholme from Muse

Chris Wolstenholme from Muse backs the proposal.

"I think it's getting to the point where it's absolutely necessary," he said. "There's too many areas to be corrupted.

"I think it's something that has to be cracked down on. It's simply not fair on fans.

"I think all of this is still a few years away. Hopefully at some point they will be able to get a good system in place that completely eradicates any of the secondary ticketing market."

Paramore lead singer Hayley Williams is also for regulation.

She said: "The fact that people get scammed and that sucks so, I don't know, hopefully the future has something in store for all of us that can you know be good for everyone."

Hayley Williams from Paramore

Last year however, Justin Bieber's promoter Rob Hallett said he was in favour of self-regulation rather than the government intervening.

He said: "Genuine fans, genuine problems happen, I've had tickets to shows or football matches which I genuinely can't get to, why shouldn't I be able to let someone else have the opportunities, especially for sold out gigs?

"We're allowing the cowboys to come in and make a killing we as an industry need to stop that, we need to protect our consumer."

A spokesman for the secondary site Get Me In said: "Fans want ticket resale, they like the convenience and our role in that is to provide a safe and secure platform for fans to buy and sell tickets."

Ed Parkinson, Viagogo's head of marketing says the site welcomes the report.

He said: "We've always warned consumers of the dangers of buying from street sellers or unsecured websites which don't offer the same guarantee that we do."

The notion of a more transparent and open ticketing industry is also supported by Stubhub, which is owned by eBay.

Their general manager, Brigitte Ricou-Bellan, says their "experience is that regulation does not ultimately benefit the consumer" and will drive the problem back onto the streets.