Canadians frustrated with ticket scalpers using bots, support punishment for those caught: survey

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – It has been a problem for years, but the issue of scalping bots was really thrust into the spotlight when tickets for the Tragically Hip’s last shows went on sale last month.

A new survey finds Canadian concert-goers are very frustrated when it comes to not being able to buy tickets to see their favourite artists.

“We’ve heard so many comments in the media and on social media of BC residents who couldn’t get any tickets to specific concerts — particularly the last Tragically Hip concerts — and we wanted to take a look at the situation and see if this was as widespread as we thought,” explains Mario Canseco with Insights West.

About three in 10 Canadians who go to concerts reported being unable to buy tickets to a specific show.

“[That] certainly suggests that there are a lot of people out there who are unhappy with the situation… They have to go through one of these online markets to buy tickets and they end up not having any choices after three minutes,” says Canseco.

The survey found it is harder for people in Alberta and BC to get tickets online. Canseco says one reason is that there are larger urban areas here than in places like the Maritimes or Quebec.

“There are a lot of people [in BC and Alberta] who want to get into some of these concerts, and you’re competing with many more residents — and many robots as well — who are buying tickets.”

He adds there’s a secondary market here, in which people are willing to pay a big mark-up to attend concerts.

“We saw it with the Tragically Hip concert — just minutes after it was sold out, you had a lot of those tickets in the secondary markets. And there are people out there who are willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for those tickets.”

Tickets for the Tragically Hip concert also showed up on sites like Craigslist and eBay in other parts of the country, including Toronto.

Canseco says there’s a lot of support among Canadians for the idea of punishing scalpers who are caught using bots.

“Eighty-seven per cent would like to see a law similar to the one the state of New York is thinking about, which would [see] either severe fines or jail time for scalpers who are caught using bots. It’s essentially taking the way technology works to benefit yourself. It’s one of the things that’s really making people really unhappy with the state of affairs.

“One third of those who go to concerts say, ‘Let’s go back to the system we had in the ’80s and ’90s and just line up outside the venue — at least we know nobody’s going to jump the queue.”