That’s it.

The End.
It stands a very real danger of being true – EVERYWHERE!
In November last year the ticket brokers in France got together and formed the Syndicat National des Indépendants de la Billeterie (SNIB). The French ASTA really. A French law, on the books since 1919, prohibits the resale of tickets for state-subsidized events and of course Roland Garros – the French Open Tennis Championship – is State Subsidised.

Over the years though it was pretty much accepted that tickets were sold outside the event and a quirk of law meant that a person could only be arrested if the whole transaction, both payment and the handover was made by one person. But times are changing. This from the NY Times:
“Last year, the (French Open Tennis Championship) federation erected another barrier to the black market: it hired an online company, Viagogo, to buy and resell at face value any French Open ticket whose buyer decided not to attend.

A week ago, as he walked near the front gate, Longuépée (a deputy director of the French Tennis Federation) said, he encountered an older scalper who recognized him from their years of watching each other on the sidewalk.

With good-natured banter, Longuépée said, the scalper told him: “ ‘You killed us with your e-ticket.’ And I said: ‘Well, we have our job. You’re doing your job, I’m doing mine.’ ”

Longuépée said he did not tell the scalper that the federation was working with lawmakers to make scalping a felony and to raise the fine to about 15,000 euros from a few hundred.

If the proposed bill passes, he said, it will transform the struggle.

“We will finish off the scalpers,” he said, using a French metaphor for euthanising an injured racehorse.”

The REAL danger to the UK Secondary Ticketing industry is concealed behind this statement though:

“Apart from the scalpers, who are around the stadium, you have something like more than 100 Web sites,” said Longuépée, whose responsibility is ticketing and corporate hospitality.
All are aimed at selling tickets “THAT THEY DON’T HAVE,” he said.

That they don’t have. That is the crux of the matter. If the venue, promoter, artist, distributor or anyone else claims title and can prove that nobody else could possibly, legitimately, hold the ticket for resale it is our view that the case law brought about by the John Kokoulis case (Herts Box Office, Paperticket, the footballticketshop) which stated that Fraud was committed because sales were being made of tickets that these websites did not have. This has far reaching consequenses of course.

The issue that we have as an Association is the slow migration of all of the brokers to offshore locations. Traditionally, an offshore operation was a scam operation but now the legitimate brokers are being forced overseas – out of Europe. This puts the consumer in great peril, loses revenue from a legitimate industry and gives the media another reason to group the scammers with the legitimate brokers.
The change of government in the UK presents one of two tableaux – a Golden Opportunity or a real and very present danger to the future of the Secondary Markets. Unless the Secondary Ticketing Industry in Europe present a united front and work together to stop scam ticket websites which provide all of the reasons to outlaw Secondary Ticketing to the various media and Law Enforcement agencies there will only be a handful of Secondary outlets controlled by the Primary outlets.

The Secondary Ticket Industry will be, in the words of M. Longuépée, euthanised!