Ticketmaster has begun delisting resale tickets for Ontario events to comply with a new provincial law that caps the price of such tickets at face value.
The platform’s spokesperson, Shabnum Durrani, said customers will be able to relist their tickets next week when it will have updated its resale marketplace.
“We remain committed to creating a fair and secure ticket marketplace for everyone in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations,” Durrani said, adding that Ticketmaster has been notifying customers of the changes.
The move comes after the Ontario government passed its budget bill, which included the resale ticket price cap. The bill received royal assent on Friday.
The price cap follows consumer complaints about tickets to popular events, such as last year’s World Series and Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, being scooped up by resellers who posted them for several times their face value.
The Ford government is targeting ticket resellers, with plans to make it illegal to resell concert and event tickets for more than their original cost. CBC’s Lorenda Reddekopp breaks down what we know.
Amendments to the 2017 Ticket Sales Act were announced by the government last month and followed the premier’s vow last year to review legislation due to sky-high World Series resale tickets in Toronto.
That promise was a marked change in stance by Premier Doug Ford after his government scrapped part of an anti-scalping law in 2019 that would have capped ticket resale prices at 50 per cent above the original face value.
While tickets to FIFA World Cup events in Toronto this summer were expected to be exempt from the resale cap, a spokesperson for the minister of public and business service delivery and procurement said the cap would in fact apply to the sporting event as well.
“FIFA will be subject to the cap, no exemptions,” said Giulia Paikin, press secretary for Stephen Crawford.
Crawford told reporters on Friday the recap rule takes effect immediately and that his government would be in communication with ticket-selling companies.
StubHub, SeatGeek opposed change
A spokesperson for StubHub told CBC News that the resale platform intends to comply with the law — and is looking for more guidance from the province — despite its opposition to the cap.
“Price caps expose fans to a massive increase in ticket fraud, but don’t bring costs down. We will continue to work with Ontario through the implementation process and remind the Government that they were right when they found price caps ‘unenforceable’ just a few years ago,” a StubHub spokesperson said in an email.
Joe Freeman, vice-president of government relations at SeatGeek, did not say how his company plans to comply. But he said SeatGeek is reviewing the legislation and would continue to “advocate for the best outcome for fans.”
Proposed new laws in the U.K. would ban the resale of a ticket above face value. Advocates say it will level the playing field for fans, but resale companies say the move will fuel black markets.
Freeman argued that price caps will hurt fans, rather than improve the ticket market.
“Price controls on resale don’t lower what fans pay. They push transactions and fans off regulated platforms to sites like Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace, where there are no buyer protections and fraud rates are nearly four times higher,” he said.
SeatGeek sent an email to some of its customers on Thursday, saying the change could impact fans’ ability to buy, sell and access live events. The email, viewed by CBC News, encouraged users to comment on the proposal on the Ontario government website and asked them to take a survey about the resale cap, the results of which would be shared with the government.
Gametime declined to comment, as they said they were awaiting clarity on the rule.
Concerns about price caps remain
The new law its a step in the right direction, according to Vass Bednar, managing director of the Canadian SHIELD Institute, a non-partisan think-tank, even if questions about how well it will work in practice remain.
“It’s feeling more like a lottery or a game of chance to score a ticket to a favourite sports team or a musical artist that you want to support,” Bednar said.
She says limiting ticket prices might make trying to get access more “predictable and accessible.”
But Rotman School of Business professor Richard Powers says the move eliminates any incentive for reselling platforms like StubHub — which do provide a worthwhile service as a safe, secure place to resell tickets — to keep operating, as they can’t earn any money from the resale under the new rule.
“That really does question their business model,” Powers said, adding that a service charge that allows those companies to make enough money to stay profitable might be necessary.
The Ontario government passed its omnibus budget bill on Thursday, which includes a cap on resale ticket prices. While the bill hasn’t yet received royal assent, Ticketmaster is already delisting resale tickets for events in the province.
Others worry that the move only puts more power in the hands of big companies. Jay Goldberg, Canadian affairs manager of the Consumer Choice Center, says companies like Ticketmaster could simply charge higher prices for tickets from the get-go.
“This isn’t actually promoting more competition. This is actually just promoting, you know, more market share for Ticketmaster and more dominance,” Goldberg said.
Still, Powers says, how effective the law will be depends largely on how well its policed. While possible fines of $10,000 for companies that don’t comply have been floated, Powers isn’t sure if they will be enough to curb reselling.
“Will it be enough of a deterrent?” Powers said. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
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