StubHub says Ontario's new law capping event ticket resale prices will negatively impact fans
Ontario has officially passed legislation that will strengthen protection for consumers making significant purchases, including concert and event tickets.
This means the days of unattainable concert tickets are finally behind us.
The passing of the Ticket Sales Act will not only help prevent ticket fraud and excessive markups in the resale ticket market, but it will also ban ticket bots, cap the resale price of tickets at 50% above face value, require businesses selling or reselling tickets to disclose key information to consumers and establish new enforcement measures to help make sure that ticket selling and reselling businesses are following the law.
For event-goers who have felt taken advantage by ticket re-sellers selling outrageously priced tickets, the passing of the Ticket Sales Act might come as great news.
But online ticket exchange giant StubHub, however, feels differently… much differently.
Following the news broke about the passing of the Ticket Sales Act, Jeff Poirier, General Manager, Concerts and Theater – North America at StubHub released an open letter stating his thoughts on the matter.
The letter was addressed to “Ontario Live Event Fans” which says while he supports the main objective of the new legislation, he is not on board with the ticket price caps imposed on resell tickets.
In the statement, he not only says he opposes ticket price caps, and that the new legislation will “negatively impact Ontario fans”, as the cap will not stop price inflation but rather make ticket resale less regulated by the government and more susceptible to counterfeit and fraud.
“If the established market rate exceeds the 50% cap established by government, those sales won’t stop or adapt to reflect the price caps – they’ll just occur at their true value through channels the government cannot regulate.”
“It will happen on street corners where the risk of counterfeit and fraud is significant, and no guarantees are in place; or it will happen on ticket resale websites located outside of jurisdiction of the Ontario government. Either way – you and businesses that have invested in the province will be hurt,” says Poirier.
While Poirier is fully opposed to the price caps, he is on board with the banning of ticket bots, and says, “StubHub fully supports legislation prohibiting the use of bots to procure tickets. Full stop.”
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