While the province moves to ban software designed to buy tickets to events in bulk so they can be resold at higher prices, at least one ticket reseller says he doesn't think the changes will make tickets cheaper or easier to access for consumers because of what's missing.
Solicitor General Mike Farnworth put forward the Ticket Sales Act Tuesday. If passed, it would prohibit the bots that use algorithms to mass-purchase seats at live events, keeping fans from being able to purchase tickets at face value.
Facing questions about enforceability, Farnworth said the law would mean that companies like Ticketmaster would be able to cancel transactions made by algorithms and not people.
The act targets those who resell tickets to make money, and is not meant to punish individuals who need to sell their tickets for various reasons outside of making money.
"The new laws will make the ticket buying process more transparent and equitable for consumers, so that everyone in our province will have a fair chance of getting tickets for their favourite acts and events," Farnworth said Tuesday.
But Kingsley Bailey of Vancouver Ticket says the law isn’t as transparent as it could be – specifically when it comes to inventory disclosure. That’s where consumers are told how many tickets are being sold in total and by whom.
He says the general public should be told how many tickets are available through various pre-sales.
"If these tickets are on sale and there's only 30 per cent on sale to the general public, I’m not going to buy these, I’m not going to buy this pre-sale because 70% of the tickets are still out there," Bailey told CTV News.
The proposed consumer protection would also regulate how tickets to live events including concerts and sports are bought and sold in B.C. Measures outlined in the act include that secondary sellers and secondary ticketing platform operators must offer refund guarantees.
Refunds should be given if the event is cancelled before the ticket can be used and if the ticket doesn't grant the purchaser admission to the event for which it was purchased. Refunds would also be required if the ticket is counterfeit, doesn't match its description as advertised, or is cancelled by the primary seller because it was purchased through mass-buying software.
Prices and key terms must be disclosed in a clear and prominent way, and resellers must be clear that they are secondary sellers.
Speculative tickets that a seller does not yet have cannot be sold, and consumers and businesses will be able to take civil action should they feel they've suffered a loss by someone who's broken the new law.
In a statement, Ticketmaster Canada said it has "long had zero tolerance" for bots and speculative ticketing.
Touting its own technology to circumvent and block bots, the company said it believes the new B.C. legislation will also help improve the overall ticket buying experience.
A report released by the province last August suggested the majority of B.C. residents wanted a ban on bots. About 6,500 people responded to a survey from the ministry of the solicitor general which was conducted to help inform Farnworth's decisions as he looked to regulate the industry.
The ministry said 97 per cent responded that they'd like to see a bot ban. More than eight in 10 said they'd support setting a price limit on resold tickets.
Similar legislation banning scalper bots came into effect in Ontario in January 2018. That law also limits resale prices to 50 per cent above face value.
B.C.'s version currently does not limit resale price, but it does include that a secondary seller must disclose the face value and total price for which it's being resold.
Farnworth said enforcing caps was difficult and the worry was that would send ticket re-sales underground.
With files from The Canadian Press
