I’m a music fan.

And, like a lot of my fellow music fans, I feel totally let down by the latest concert ticket pricing debacle – it is long past time change this system as many believe that concert ticket pricing has become very unfair.
We’ve all read the news stories recently. About fans waiting for hours in a queue online for tickets for great artists like Oasis. They wait and wait, and then, when they get to the top of the queue, they aren’t offered a ticket at the price that was originally announced. Instead, the ticket has price has risen.

This is because of something called ‘surge pricing’.

We’re told that ‘surge pricing’ happens in other industries, airlines and hotels for instance. But is that really the same? Let’s think about it. If you book a flight from Dublin to Paris for next week, you’ll probably pay more for it than if you plan and book your trip for a year’s time. It’s more expensive to travel at short notice, but at least you are informed of the actual price. And you make a decision to buy the ticket then.
It’s the same with hotels. Some of them significantly spike their prices when a major event is happening in town. We mightn’t like it. But at least we know that the price we are quoted is the price we will pay. We don’t go into some ‘mystery auction’ biding against other people who want the same room.

But for concert tickets we have absolutely no idea of the ticket price until we are at the check-out.

Many people will know the excitement when you get to the top of the queue, and you can put the ticket in your basket.
It’s like the excitement that gamblers get when they make a bet. But buying a concert ticket shouldn’t be a gamble.
It’s not right that the fan is left queuing for hours and then they have to make a split-second decision about whether to pay a higher price. Music fans are emotionally invested in getting the ticket. It feels so close. They might have already told their friends, or family, that it’s looking good.
It is the most pressurised form of selling. And we shouldn’t stand for it. It’s bad for the fans, it’s bad for musicians and it’s bad for the industry.

There is a bigger issue here too.

If the concert ticket sellers get away with this – where will it end?
By the time you bring a pint of milk to the shop counter could you be told that it now suddenly costs €50? Or that someone else wants it and you’ll have to bid against them for it!

Let’s give bands and fans a fair choice. Artists should be able to charge what they like for the tickets once there is transparency and honesty
Let’s find a solution that is good for the musicians, good for the industry and that doesn’t mean heartbreak for the fans.
The music industry is full of creative people, solutions to ticket touting have been found. Many well-organised and successful mega-events already have this in place. If you can’t go to the concert, you can re-sell you ticket but you can’t charge a large mark up. Otherwise, we’re encouraging people who have no intention of going to the concert to buy a ticket and then re-sell it to some who desperately wants to see their favourite artist. The current situation of online queuing and ‘surge pricing’ makes good artists look bad. Let’s protect them and their hard-earned reputations.

We can’t have a situation where people buy tickets purely to re-sell them at a profit. That rips off the legitimate music lover. But when the consternation and rebukes fade, unless something concrete is done, the perennial fiasco will continue to cause distress and upset. Now is as good an opportunity as ever to make real change and the most effective change should be EU wide.

I’m proposing a two-point plan to sort this out:

1. A pan-European legally binding ticket selling policy to prohibit such ticket auction surging.
2. An obligatory code of fair practice which includes open and transparent ticket sales information. How many tickets are available? Informing the consumer in advance how they are being sold? What price are the tickets?

Together we can make ticket selling fair and transparent. Music fans deserve this.

Vincent P Martin