In early 2016, Adele played eight sold-out shows at The O2 arena in her native London
The more prominent players note that, while there are clever ideas out there, few start-ups pack the kind of rounded services promoters demand. “The emergence of all of these ‘disruptive’ start-ups has actually been very good for us,” says Wilmshurst. “It has reminded old and new clients that financial security, operational stability and an experienced team will always trump a bit of someone else’s money, an app and a couple of kids. We are just glad to still be growing as a business, albeit slower, and maintaining our relevance and position amongst an ever more competitive field.” For his own part, Wilmshurst says he is not inclined to “over-invent,” though he adds: “If it helps the client or consumer then we will move towards it, but we see little value in trying to be too clever and force ideas into play. That said, we are working on a number of new initiatives to counter bots and to really change the game on mobile.”
WE BELIEVE THE CURRENT INDUSTRIALSCALE LEVELS OF ONLINE TOUTING AND PROFITEERING CAN BE REVERSED, AND WE WANT TO WORK WITH POLICY MAKERS, MUSIC BUSINESSES AND FANS TO ACHIEVE THAT.
DISTRIBUTION OF SALES “Internet sales dominate in our market, followed by mobile and sales through our contact centre in Manchester,” says Ticketmaster UK managing director Andrew Parsons. “In terms of ticket types, paper tickets are the most common, accounting for approximately three quarters of sales, followed by print-at-home and mobile.” See Tickets reports that mobile visitor numbers now stand above 50%. The Ticket Factory puts mobile sales at more than 60%, while Skiddle is getting 70-80% of traffic and sales through the channel. “That shift everybody said was coming, really has,” says Dyer.
SECONDARY TICKETING Secondary ticketing has reached industrial levels in the UK, and is the most controversial industry issue of these times. But government legislation has so far been of the light-touch variety, ruling only that resellers should transparently publish the face value of the ticket, the seat number and any applicable restrictions. But in a situation where bots and ‘power sellers’ routinely hoover up tickets for high-demand shows, there are many in the business that feel transparent selling practices – which in any case are being widely flouted – are only a fragment of the problem. In July, a quartet of artist managers representing acts including PJ Harvey, Arctic Monkeys, One Direction and Mumford & Sons launched a campaign to challenge the practice of industrial-scale touting. The FanFair Alliance came in the wake of June’s Waterson report, a government-commissioned study that found long-term failings in the secondary market and urged reform on a number of fronts.
VALUE OF MARKET UK Music’s Measuring Music 2015 report calculates that live music added £924m (€1.1bn) to the UK economy in 2014, while growing faster than any other sector of the music business. More recently, UK Music has calculated that 27.7m visits were
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made to live music events in 2015 [source: Wish You Were Here 2016]. Ticketmaster likewise estimates the overall retail market in the UK at 66m tickets in 2016, with music responsible for around half of that. Meanwhile, based on resales from Viagogo, StubHub, Get Me In! and Seatwave, it is estimated that the British secondary business is worth more than £1bn (€1.18bn) per year, gross transactional value, in its own right, of which roughly half is thought to derive from music events.