Petition for Concert & Event Ticketing Legislation Changes

To the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, in Legislature Assembled:

We, the undersigned residents of Alberta, petition the Legislative Assembly to implement new legislation to govern ticket sales to concerts and events in the spirit of preventing scalping websites and auto-inventory grabs.

Ticket-scalping websites have made it unfair and nearly impossible to obtain tickets to popular concerts and events, and many of these sites are owned by the ticket seller themselves (Ticketmaster, with parents company Live Nation).  Currently there is no fair trade competition for Ticketmaster, and the monopoly is out of control.

In 2009, the Alberta Government repealed laws that protected consumers from ticket scalpers with respect to amusement such as concerts/shows/sports games/etc. The reasoning given was that the laws at the time were "outdated" and "largely unenforced". As a result, it is now perfectly legal for ticket agencies to purchase large blocks of tickets to any amusement event, and sell those tickets at ridiculously high prices to consumers who would have otherwise paid the regular price through the regular ticketing agency.

Other Provinces have done some simple changes to their legislation to resolve this issue, and we are requesting the following changes be evaluated and implemented in Alberta:

1. Implement legislation on online ticket sales with the primary ticket providers, that no tickets may be posted for re-sale by any individual, company or website than set by the event presenter until 48 hours after tickets are on sale to the general public.

2. Put a cap on "ticket purchasing fees", which currently can make the cost of an event ticket raise by as much as 1/3.

3. Protect consumers by reinforcing penalites for scalping tickets. Previous "outdated" legislation allowed for a $5000 penalty fee for scalping tickets, per ticket. If this were reinstated, and also enforced, this would not only prevent ticket scalpers and companies from gouging customers on tickets, but it would also allow municipalities to collect penalty fees to go towards municipal costs/expenses with respect to amusement events, such as increased police staffing for special events.

It is unreasonable to consider the fact that scalping tickets should be permitted, expected, and accepted in Alberta, either by scalping individuals or the large corporation who is selling tickets.