A Shorten Labor government will finally act on audience rip-off sites such as ViaGoGo after this weekend’s election in Australia.
The pro-Arts Labor government has created a policy to further support the entertainment industry by policing to close the loop-hole that allows sites like ViaGoGo to flood the market with fake tickets with no recourse for audience compensation with they are sold fake or overpriced tickets through the platform.
The news was welcome by Red Hot Summer founder Duane McDonald who saw hundreds of fake tickets presented over the course of his festival season. “The secondary ticketing business is doing so much damage to the industry and consumer confidence,” Duane tells Noise11.com. “Laws need to be passed that make selling at a profit illegal. It is the only way to stop it”.
Unfortunately VigGoGo preys on the vulnerable and they are the ones who purchase in good faith not expecting to be turned away at an event because they have a fake ticket. “Viagogo undertake extensive advertising to ensure they are top listing in search engines,” Duane says. “They prey on unsuspecting patrons who click on the first thing they see. There are so many horror stories of people turning up at shows with invalid tickets sometimes purchased at multiple times the face value”.
As part of Labor’s Arts Policy, Tony Burke MP, who will be Labor’s Arts Minister has made special note of the next Government’s intent on closing the loop-hole.
Tony Burke announced Labor’s Arts Policy 2019 at The Espy, St Kilda
The Labor policy for Fake Tickets is:
“Fake and overpriced tickets, as well as fake merchandise, are ripping off fans and artists.
“Labor will crackdown on fraudulent ticket scalping sites consumers paying exorbitant prices for tickets on the secondary market will no longer be allowed to continue.
“In our first term Labor will do this by legislating a resale price cap of 110%, banning ticket-buying bots, and directing the Australian competition and consumer commission (ACCC) to review these measures to ensure the reforms are having their intended effect.
“Labor will legislate further until we have addressed dodgy ticket resales websites, if necessary”.
Australia will go to an election this Saturday 18 May, 2019. The current Liberal Government has spent six years disrupting the Arts, cutting funding to the ABC, eliminating or restricting funding access and sabotaging the roll-out of Australia’s NBN.
Labor has announced a very clear policy to support the Arts with their ‘Renewing Creative Australia’ policy. The Labor Arts policy has been welcomed by an Australian music industry that for the past six years has been given little priority by the Liberals. As stated in Labor’s policy announcement “Culture is not created by government, but enabled by it. Culture is created by community”.
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