MICHELLE WAKIM, BTN REPORTER: For a lot of us, live entertainment is about as good as it gets.
COMMENTATOR: Kerr with a shot! Oh that’s incredible!
COMEDIAN: Put your hands together for Nick Cody!
Whether it's sport, music, comedy or theatre tickets are limited and often in high demand and there are some out there who take advantage of this.
SARAH GRAINGER, MUSICIAN: If someone's going to buy a ticket and then go and resell it and they're going to make a whole lot of profit from it, none of that extra money that you're paying for the ticket is going to the artist.
PERSON: I actually recently went to the Oasis concert and it was quite the war getting tickets.
PERSON: When Metallica came down not too long ago, that was pretty hard to get tickets for.
PERSON: Gather Round, it's pretty big and like finals footy as well.
PERSON: People do it just so they can make as much money as they can, that means that some people that would really enjoy going actually miss out because they can't afford it.
PERSON: Using bots to instantly buy the tickets up. It’s just, yeah, horrible. It’s very unfair, because a normal person doesn't get, really have that access to that stuff.
PERSON: People get pretty desperate.
PERSON: I do reckon it's a bit cheeky at times.
Scalping tickets, which is buying tickets and then re-selling them for a large or quick profit, is an issue in Australia and around the world. So much so, the UK government is banning it. This comes after a heap of big artists signed an open letter to their Prime Minister, urging the government to put a cap on the price of second-hand tickets.
Under the new laws, resellers like Viagogo and Stubhub, won't be able to re-sell tickets for more than the original cost, apart from an added service fee.
Platforms will be legally obligated to monitor and enforce the new regulations, and businesses who break the rules could face penalties of up to 10 per cent of their global revenue.
PERSON: New laws with that would definitely help especially because I know in the UK there's been tickets that have gone for like $3,000 for just concerts, like for a few hours.
PERSON: I think like second hand tickets is a bit, it's going to end up shady once you add laws in like people will always find a way to get around it to make the most money.
PERSON: They should put those laws on and I think they should bring them here as well.
In a statement a spokesperson for Viagogo said, while they acknowledge the UK government's announcement "evidence shows price caps have repeatedly failed fans, in countries like Ireland and Australia fraud rates are nearly four times higher than in the UK as price caps push consumers towards unregulated sites."
And while it's true, we have price caps in some parts of Australia, our laws and policing around ticket scalping are pretty different. Here, there's currently no overarching national legislation to address ticket scalping so it's up to states and territories to regulate.
In New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland, it's illegal to resell a ticket for more than 10 per cent above the original cost, but between these states the laws vary depending on the size and nature of events.
On top of this, Australian legislation generally targets individuals, unlike the incoming UK legislation which will target platforms.
PERSON: I think that you shouldn't be able to resell tickets for anyone like 10, 15 per cent more than the original price because then it's just getting a bit ridiculous.
PERSON: I reckon you should sell it for about 25 per cent at, at the max is definitely, that's probably the lowest, I’d resell mine for.
But do price caps work to stamp out scalping? When we reached out to Ticketek, a spokesperson said the platform has voluntarily implemented a face-value resale cap, which means only re-selling tickets for their original price. They say price caps are "broadly effective” but the main challenge is actually enforcing the law, particularly with resale platforms outside of Australia. They also said consistent legislation across the country would be helpful, making it fair and less confusing for fans.
And you don't have to look too far to find examples of people getting around the current laws. Last year, more than 500 people were involved in a campaign to use bots to buy and scalp Fred Again tickets. Original tickets for the shows were at most $179.90. But tickets were listed for resale on Facebook Marketplace between $300 and $400.
And In 2023, VIP packages for Taylor Swift's Era's Tour, which cost a maximum of $1,200 were on resale platforms for more than $3,000 each!
SUNSICK DAISY: Alright, ready?
Take it away!
KANE GABELL, MUSICIAN: I'm Kane.
SARAH GRAINGER: I'm Sarah.
KANE GABELL: And we're Sunsick.
SARAH GRAINGER: Daisy.
That was great.
Sunsick Daisy is a band out of Adelaide, who have recently performed on some pretty big Aussie festival line ups.
SARAH GRAINGER: I think overall, the Australian music scene is really good.
Do you think ticket scalping is a problem in Australia?
KANE GABELL: Massively. Yeah, ticket scalping is just such a horrible thing. In a time where it's like just not sustainable to like live off of a normal wage. It just makes people just like pay way more than they should and that gets in the way of real, genuine fans to be able to see the band they love.
SARAH GRAINGER: There needs to be so much more crackdown on things like bots and just like, automatically buying as many tickets as you possibly can as you know in as short a time span as possible.
Kane and Sarah support the new laws in the UK, and say the impacts of ticket scalping are wide spread and undermine both the work of the artists and the passion of fans.
SARAH GRAINGER: I think it's fair enough that they want to put a cap on reselling because if you do it enough times, if you realise, ‘oh, I can make a bit of money from this’ I think you're scum of the Earth if you do that just do that to make a profit, that’s, that’s horrible. I think that’s really unfair to the artists and everyone involved in putting on that show because they get none of it.
KANE GABELL: I think scalping happening at big events certainly taints people's views on buying tickets and even just going to shows in general and often it's, it’s a very common thing where people will not go to, you know, a smaller artist show because they're like, ‘oh, I just paid $400 to go and see Dua Lipa, you now, and I can't afford that. Like, I'm gonna stop spending money on going to see live music.’
In a statement, a spokesperson from the ACCC, which is the body that looks into reports of scalping, highlighted that while each state has their own laws around this, there are requirements for ticket resellers to make it clear they are resale platforms. They are also prohibited from engaging in misleading conduct, and it's important to keep in mind that event organisers often have their own reselling platforms to minimise ticket scalping behaviour.
And ultimately, we need to be aware of what spaces we're in when we're looking for tickets and the lengths we're going to for live entertainment.
PERSON: I bought tickets from Ticketek, they have their own resale thing which is quite good because they're all confirmed tickets and I think you should only be able to sell them if it's like confirmed.
PERSON: Having like trusted reselling companies is probably a good way to do it rather than just like individuals doing it, so that you know that it's secure and you know that you're not getting scammed or anything.
SARAH GRAINGER: If you have to resell a ticket, I think the goal should be to make the money back from the ticket, so you haven’t lost anything. And I don’t think you should be gaining anything either.