The recent ban on reselling event tickets above face value in Ontario has live music fans and venue operators closely monitoring if ticketing platforms are enforcing this new rule. Fans have been frustrated for years by secondary ticketing platforms that allow scalpers to list tickets for way more than the original price. Does this new policy really stop people from listing prices at an absurd price? No. This is why making sure your tickets are on a platform whose system can physically prevent any user from listing their tickets for above face value is important. Most secondary sites just put a little warning asking sellers to follow the law, but scalpers ignore that completely. A law is just words on a screen while fans keep getting ripped off.
Writing it down on paper is the first step to protect fans, but laws alone cannot monitor every digital transaction that takes place. When secondary marketplaces leave pricing controls up to the seller, people exploit it and fans are left with tickets that are ten times more expensive than the face value amount. According to recent reporting from CBC News, major secondary resale marketplaces are facing fines for not disclosing the original price of the ticket they are reselling. The issue with third party resale sites is that they don’t even know what the original face value was in the first place. Someone can buy a ticket for sixty dollars, list it for five hundred dollars and claim that it was the original price. No one will fact check it and resellers get away with selling tickets for insane prices. To truly enforce the new law the protection must exist directly within the ticket infrastructure.
Restoring fan trust
When fans are forced to pay an insane amount of money on the ticket for the show, their overall budget for the entire event shrinks. So now they are spending less at the bar, on food and on merchandise on the day of the show. If a fan drops three hundred dollars on a ticket that was supposed to be a hundred dollars, they won’t want to spend more money getting another drink at the bar, a bite to eat, or a shirt at the merch stand. The two hundred extra dollars they spent on the ticket could have been spent at the venue. But instead it is sitting in the reseller’s pocket. Not only does scalping damage the trust between the venue, artists, and fans but it also decreases your overall revenue for the night. A lose lose situation for everyone but the reseller. By enforcing strict face value caps through built in software mechanics, venues can protect their fans, regain their trust all while complying with Ontario’s new legislation.
AdmitONE provides venue operators and promoters with the modern ticketing infrastructure needed to navigate shifting regulations effortlessly. The platform embeds resale protections directly into its software. By coding face value caps into the system, it will physically prevent any user from listing, transferring, or reselling a ticket for anything higher than its original purchase price. Stop relying on third party resale sites and control the entire process yourself. With AdmitONE, you can keep your tickets fair, protect your fans, keep your bar sales high, and stay compliant with Ontario’s laws.
