Ticketmaster and StubHub executives in Canada have been biting their nails for weeks about the Ontario Ticket Sales Act, waiting for it to go through the legislative process.
To their dismay, the law was approved Dec. 13, with 50 lawmakers saying yay and 43 nay.
The act outlines specifications for how tickets are sold, distributed and monitored. It also helps crack down on scalpers and bots that buy massive amounts of tickets and increase the prices — all of which Ticketmaster and StubHub approve. It’s the price caps on tickets that concerns ticket executives.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Ontario Chamber of Commerce, and the Information Technology Association of Canada also were against the legislation.
The Ontario government got involved in monitoring ticket sales when the consumers were left paying outrageous prices for the Tragically Hip Tour last year, said StubHub’s Jeff Poirier, GM, music and theater, North America.
“The issue that came up was how expensive some of the tickets were,” he said.
At first, Ticketmaster and StubHub were supportive of the legislation and both parties sat down with lawmakers to hash out the language.
The goal was to protect consumers from scammers, which everyone agreed on. The proposed law also initially stated that consumers must know how many tickets are for sale for every show, and Ticketmaster and StubHub were supportive of that provision.
“I think it was to create fairness and transparency for consumers. One of the key points of the law was how many tickets are for sale. That was scrapped,” Poirier said.
Under the Ticket Business Transparency clause, it originally “set out disclosure and transparency obligations for ticket businesses.” The final language of the law was changed from “sets out disclosure and transparency obligations for ticket businesses requirements to disclose the number of tickets available to an event and the face value of the total ticket price” to “certain information before tickets are sold.”
“It’s a shame that they’re going to keep Ontario fans in the dark,” Poirier said.
The new law also “sets out prohibitions that apply to ticket sales and the use of certain software. Sales above face value on the secondary market are permitted providing that certain conditions are met and sales of tickets that are not in a person’s possession or control are prohibited. In addition, the use or sale of software intended to circumvent certain controls and measures on a website, online service or electronic application of a ticket business is prohibited.”
Ticketmaster also takes issue with price caps.
“We remain concerned that the reintroduction of legislated price caps will not serve the best interests of Ontario consumers. When demand is unsaturated, opportunists will no doubt find the opportunity to exploit the arbitrage. Fans will be driven to unsanctioned platforms without consumer protection,” Ticketmaster Canada’s COO Patti-Anne Tarlton said in an email. “Until July 2015, the resale of a ticket above face value was illegal in Ontario, but the law did not deter the activity. The proposed price cap will be equally ineffective. When the law changed in 2015 to allow for resale in the province, it came with two very important consumer protection provisions. A seller had to either provide a money-back guarantee or assurance that the ticket was authentic and valid; both these provisions have positive consumer protection outcomes.”
Now that the legislation has passed, both Ticketmaster and StubHub are committed to working with the Canadian government to abide by the new law.
“We will abide by the laws of that province,” Poirier said.
Ticketmaster expressed the same sentiment.
“We look forward to working with government throughout the winter as they seek to further define and clarify clauses in the regulation period. As we do in all jurisdictions in which we operate, we will adapt to the legislation,” Tarlton said.