Ticket selling giant Ticketmaster have today announced that they will close their secondary reselling websites GET ME IN! and Seatwave this October in a major bid to combat ticket touts who use the sites to sell on gig tickets at extortionate prices.
Head of Ticketmaster UK Andrew Parsons, confirmed the move, saying: “We know that fans are tired of seeing others snap up tickets just to resell for a profit on secondary websites, so we have taken action,”
In the place of GET ME IN! and Seatwave, fans will now be allowed to sell any unwanted tickets directly on Ticketmaster, where a simple click will release the tickets back into the market for genuine buyers. And unlike the current system, sellers will only be allowed to charge the original face value price or less. There will be a 15% surcharge on every ticket to cover any booking fees paid by the original buyer.
Ticketmaster has also vowed to be more transparent about the difference between new and resold tickets. When selecting seats for a concert, theatre or sporting event, the seat map will now show standard tickets in blue and second-hand tickets in pink.
The decision to shut down Seatwave and GET ME IN! comes one month after the Irish government backed a bill that would ban the resale of tickets for more than face value.
Ticketmaster UK have also released a statement via their website!
We’re shutting down our sites GET ME IN! and Seatwave.
That’s right, we’ve listened and we hear you: secondary sites just don’t cut it anymore and you’re tired of seeing others snap up tickets just to resell for a profit.
All we want is you, the fan, to be able to safely buy tickets to the events you love.
So, we’re launching a fan-to-fan ticket exchange on Ticketmaster, where you can easily buy tickets or sell tickets you can’t use through our website or app, at the price originally paid or less.
The new Ticketmaster website will be rolled out in October in the UK and Ireland, and across Europe early next year. But from today, there will be no new events listed on GET ME IN! or Seatwave.
We’re excited about making ticketing simpler. All you need to think about are those incredible experiences you’ll never forget.
Are you happy with Ticketmaster’s decision to shut down their partner sites? Let us know your thoughts over on Twitter @CelebMix.