(Hypebot) — Bastille frontman Dan Smith is not the first artist to call out predatory ticket resellers. But he has done a particularly effective job of articulating how scalpers hurt artists and fans.
Bastille’s Dan Smith on how scalpers hurt artists and fans
In a series of interviews just prior to the band putting an arena tour on sale next week, Bastille frontman Dan Smith shared how little control most artists have over scalpers and pushed for regulatory changes.
“As a band, we’ve always wanted to keep our ticket prices as low as possible,” said Smith, “but obviously you’re juggling the sort of realities of a tour, and what it costs to travel to put on that show to employ a whole load of people who are sort of juggling that – plus wanting to keep prices fair.”
He continues: “So it is really galling to see someone come in and resell that ticket for, like double, triple the price, knowing that that money is not going back to the people who work really hard to put the tour together, work in the venues and all the sort of many, many, many other jobs that are involved.”
In another interview he pointed out that Ireland has made ticket resales illegal above face value.
Smith and others are backing a UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recommendation which suggests a 10% cap on “secondary” ticket prices. The move would effectively make running a major secondary ticket operation unprofitable in the UK.
UK officials are also looking so-called “dynamic pricing”, where much like airline tickets prices fluctuate to reflect demand.
Watch this edited interview with Bastille’s Dan Smith to learn more.
Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, a Berklee College Of Music professor and founder of the Skyline Artists Agency
