After the Italian government’s recent move to regulate secondary ticketing, the anti-secondary action moved back to the UK yesterday, with StubHub and Ticketmaster giving evidence to MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee on ticket touting. Both companies were under scrutiny over whether they monitor or police professional touts using their systems to buy tickets. “We’re giving everyone the opportunity to register but we do have power sellers becoming the focus of high level media scrutiny. So there’s a disincentive to be 100% transparent,” said Ticketmaster UK chairman Chris Edmonds. MP Nigel Adams, who has been leading the current charge in parliament over secondary ticketing, was blunt in his verdict. “They’re quite happy to turn a blind eye to what could be criminality. Anyone watching the session would have been alarmed by what looks like abject complacency,” he told the Guardian. “In some ways they are acting like-old fashioned fences and they need to clean their act up.” Meanwhile, ticketing expert Reg Walker drew attention to the fact that “a small number of artists” are “certainly complicit” in the secondary market, making tickets directly available on secondary sites for a cut of the profits.
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