Spanish Music Fans Launch Online Petition In Fightback Against Ticket Touts
Spanish Bruce Springsteen fan-club launches change.org petition taking on ticket touts
Petition comes on the heels of Spanish law-suit against secondary ticketing websites
13 June 2017 :- The President of the Bruce Springsteen fan club in Spain, Joan Colet, has today launched a petition on change.org calling on the Spanish Congress and Government to take on for-profit secondary ticketing websites. The fan club – known as the ‘Stone Pony Club’ – demands that the Spanish Congress and Government legislate against companies, websites and individuals who resell concert tickets above their face-value. Using the hashtag: #stopticketabuse to promote their cause, the petitioners argue that there has been a large increase in the amount of for-profit secondary ticket sellers in recent years. The petition also notes that often tickets are sold on at many times the original price, sometimes even when the tickets in question have had their resale expressly banned by the event promoter.Touts are accused of using a slew of secondary ticketing websites - the petition names Seatwave, Stubhub, and Viagogo as examples - to monopolise tickets and hold concert-going fans to ransom. Touts have also been accused of selling fake or duplicate tickets, tickets which they touts do not actually possess, and even selling fans non-existent tickets.Said Joan Colet: "Live music fans need a government ban on the resale for profit of live music tickets, so that we can return to buying tickets at their agreed price, without risk of being ripped off. "I have created this petition in order to gather the 500,000 signatures that will allow me to present our case to make Congress, the Government, and the Judiciary take the necessary legislative and judicial measures so as to end the robbery of the real fans of live music by a few unscrupulous people who profit at their expense.”The Stone Pony petition comes hot on the heels of several sets of lawsuits brought against websites such as Seatwave and Stubhub earlier this year. The lawsuits have been raised by the promoters of concerts by the iconic singer-songwriter Joaquin Sabina, the promoters for U2, the Rolling Stones, Adele, Justin Bieber, and others including Springsteen himself, as well as fans of these artists who have been affected by touting. The suits complain of specific instances of the websites engaging in unscrupulous practices such as lying to consumers about the reliability of the tickets (some of them being actually counterfeit or duplicated), illegal sale of tickets invalidated by resale and advanced selling of currently unissued tickets for concerts the artists performed in Spain.Cases like these can only be building momentum for anti-touting legislation in Spain. In the wake of recent outrage in Spain, the Spanish Ministry for Culture pledged on March 8th to look into legislation to put an end to the secondary-ticketing scandal. Bruce Springsteen fans will hope that petitions like these will get ticket sales back under control, and let them get back to dancing in the dark.Full text of Petition (translated into English):Petition addressed to:
MINISTRY OF JUSTICE OF SPAIN: RAFAEL CATALA POLOMINISTRY OF EDUCATION, CULTURE AND SPORTS OF SPAIN: IÑIGO MENDEZ DE VIGOSTATE SECRETARY OF CULTURE OF SPAIN: FERNANDO BENZO SAINZ
LEGISLATE AGAINST THE SPECULATIVE RESALE OF TICKETS FOR CONCERTS
In recent years the massive resale of online tickets for live music shows has exploded. And that has become a nightmare for fans.The appearance of reseller websites (such as Ticketbits / Stubhub, Seatwave, Viagogo, etc.) has led to the massive appearance of resellers who monopolize tickets to resell them on those websites multiplying their price (two, five, ten times). And they often deceive fans by selling them fake, duplicate, non-existent tickets, tickets they do not yet have, or tickets that no longer entitle the buyer to attend the concert because the promoter has banned their resale.Live music fans need to punish those guilty of such scams and prohibit speculative resale so that we can buy tickets again at their real price and without risk of being scammed.The government must defend consumers by rapidly legislating the prohibition of speculative resale of concert tickets, at prices above their face value, and punishing individuals, companies and websites that consistently cheat fans of live music.I have created this petition in order to gather the 500,000 signatures that will allow me to present our case to make Congress, the Government and the Judiciary take the necessary legislative and judicial measures so as to end the robbery of the real fans of live music by a few unscrupulous people who profit at their expense.
The petition can be found online at: https://www.change.org/p/ministro-de-justicia-rafael-catala-polo-legislar-contra-la-reventa-especulativa-de-entradas-para-conciertos
Full details of the fan club can be found online here: http://www.stoneponyclub.es/