TICKET TOUTING

Ticket Touting-unfair practice or an enterprise culture?



Ticket Touting - Unfair Practice or an Enterprise Culture?

On March 14, 2011, a London Metropolitan Police squad named 'Operation Podium' arrested 49 people in ticket tout crackdown. According to Chris Allison, the national Olympic security coordinator, ticket touts represent organized criminal networks (Mirror News 2011). Touts cash in public sporting and entertainment events by reselling tickets at a higher-than-face value price, depriving the genuine sporting fans from entertaining themselves in mega events like Olympics. Moreover, the best seats in such events will be in no time sold to some of the most privileged over an internet site like e-bay. The price charge does not always hurt the event participants; when tickets remain unsold, they are sold at a price below the face value, acting detrimental to organisers' interests. The role of touts comes in again. In this case, their job is to do away with the unsold tickets at the best possible price. A free market viewpoint will support a tout's activity given this situation (Whittingdale 2008). An event is, like any other service, a perishable product. Unsold tickets are a complete loss to the organisers of the event because excessive tickets remain a piece of paper alone. Though touting has existed in some form in the past years as well, the problem took abnormal proportions since ticket reselling entered the electronic and web arena. The last few years have seen an explosion of ticket touting with the best tickets for many events selling out within hours of the tickets going on sale, only to appear on e-bay some time later at much more than their face value. Such activity makes money for small-time entrepreneurs and large-scale criminal operations alike, potentially depriving artists of income and preventing poorer fans from being able to obtain tickets even when the artists have tried to ensure that ticket prices stay reasonable.

E-commerce today still suffers from some transient problems limiting its volume, such as a lack of familiarity with this new medium or a limited selection of products offered online. The dot-com crash, following a period of overinvestment that seems typical for the birth phase of revolutionary technologies, is a challenge which only the fittest e-business models will survive. But that shake-out will also help to streamline the internet and in the process revive the still-considerable growth potential tor e-commerce. The internet enables businesses to automate many operations and create a worldwide, 24-hour/day presence at low cost. At the same time it empowers customers to e-shop across the globe, greatly increasing their choice of products and their information about prices. The inadequate management of operational risk and a lack of technical security make an electronic money scheme vulnerable to counterfeit and fraud.

E-auctions are becoming important selling and buying channels for many companies and individuals, including ticket tout. E-auctions enable buyers to access goods and services, anywhere auctions are conducted. Moreover, almost perfect market information is available about prices, products, supply and demand, and so ...