Hacker News Reader

Comment by hypeatei | Hacker News Reader

If Venues and Artists were missing out, couldn't they have changed their terms when selling the ticket?

I don't really see why the UK government would need to step in here at all.

Most venues ban resale, or limit it heavily. What you end up with is sketchy people outside the venue or on facebook selling tickets for cash/paypal, and it's 50/50 on whether it's legit or not. Which is exactly how sites like StubHub work. Some people travel and get hotels with these resold tickets, and find out they were sold multiple times, or were fraudulent and at best can only get the ticket price back, and either pay more for a new one last minute, or be left with a hotel and vacation to sit outside the show.

There's nothing the venue can do, I went to a show recently that sent day of QR codes to try and prevent resale, and scalpers either mirror the app with a link, or take a picture. You can't check ID's at a 100,000 + person event.

I'd generally agree with your direction & perspective and don't know why this was the necessary place.

  - Why didn't venues want more of the revenue? 
  - Why couldn't artists simply set their terms for their tickets? I don't have the answers and it may depend on

There are hands at play I'm not seeing/understanding as this legislation was pushed for by major artists.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com