LONDON (CelebrityAccess) — Fan Fair Alliance, an advocacy group that seeks to challenge “industrial scale online ticket touting” announced a partnership with O2 to ensure that as many Priority Tickets as possible are getting to fans instead of brokers.
In 2008, O2 pioneered the pre-sale model with the launch of Priority Tickets allowing customers access to tickets 48 hours before general release. The model works by providing O2 customers early access to official tickets which are sold on primary ticketing sites.
However, as anyone who has been paying attention to the sector knows, brokers have access to ticket presales as well. To combat this, O2 and FFA have proposed a number of new measures to combat those ticket touts.
Changes include:
– Updating Priority Tickets terms and conditions to reflect recent changes to the Consumer Rights Act, ensuring tickets are for individuals and not businesses
– Working with our venue partners to monitor all pre-sale purchases
– A regular cleanse of the Priority Ticket database to remove individuals who no longer meet the minimum criteria and/or abuse the service
– Providing FFA advice to O2 customers in order to help them make informed ticket purchasing decisions
“We recognize the increasing concerns from our customers, artists and the wider industry about the scale of abuse in the secondary ticket market. Music is in O2’s DNA and we are committed to ensuring that tickets made available through Priority Tickets end up in the hands of genuine fans. The FFA has made significant progress in addressing some of these concerns over the past two years, pushing for change from government and organizations alike. We are looking forward to working with the FFA even further to help drive the agenda and ultimately clamp down on touts,” O2’s chief marking officer Nina Bibby said.
“Pre-sales are part and parcel of live music, and this raft of measures from O2 will help ensure Priority Tickets get into the hands of real music fans. It is a very positive move forward, and one that will have ramifications throughout the live music business,” Music Manager’s Forum CEO Annabella Coldrick added.
