FanFair Alliance and the Music Managers Forum (MMF) have published a guide to help managers minimise the touting and resale of their artists’ tickets on secondary ticketing websites.
The guide, available as a free download from www.fanfairalliance.org, offers Ten Tips To Beat The Touts, as well as case studies from leading managers and music industry professionals - including Adam Tudhope (Everybody’s), Caius Pawson (Young Turks), Alex Bruford (ATC Live), Angus Baskerville (13 Artists) and Richard Jones (Key Music Management). It will be circulated by the MMF to its 500 manager members.
The launch follows yesterday's Live & TIcketing Summit at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, organised with Songkick and the MMF, which was attended by some of the UK's leading music managers and booking agents.
Speaking at the launch, Mumford & Sons manager Adam Tudhope, co-founder of the FanFair Alliance, the recently-launched campaign against industrial-scale online ticket touting, described the guide as a “first step” towards pooling industry knowledge to fight back against touts and develop pro-consumer ticketing strategies.
He said: “When we launched FanFair in July of this year, we encouraged managers, agents, promoters and others in the live music business to continue to innovate to ensure our artists’ tickets reach their intended audience at the right price. We all know that this is a huge challenge. We are operating within a dysfunctional market, where the abuse of unregulated ticket resale websites is out of control. However, while we wait for Government to act, it is essential that managers and music businesses develop ticketing strategies that aim to disrupt the touts and help fans. This guide marks a first step towards that goal.”
Measures advised in the guide include applying tighter terms and conditions to control transferability of tickets, such as printing names on tickets, ensuring fans have clear information about those terms at the point of sale and offering a face value resale or reallocation option for ticket-buyers who are genuinely unable to attend an event
FanFair has also announced announce that a raft of leading ticketing services and direct-to-consumer businesses have signed our Declaration including Active Ticketing, DICE, Music Glue, Pledge Music, Scarlet Mist, Songkick, Twickets and WeGotTickets.
