A new US white paper puts a number on what fees and resale add to the cost of going to a gig, and the number is eleven billion dollars a year.
The Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator report says ticket broker and online platform practices inflate the cost of live events in the United States by about US$11 billion annually. Processing fees account for an estimated US$13.6 billion a year, of which the report classes US$6.8 billion as excess. Resale mark ups add another US$4.5 billion.
The recommendations are blunt. Ban resale above face value, and cap online platform processing fees at 10 per cent. The National Independent Venue Association and the National Independent Talent Organization have both backed the findings.
It comes while several US jurisdictions move on resale mark ups and platform fees, including Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont and Washington DC.
Australia already sits closer to where the report wants the US to get, with resale above 110 per cent of the original price restricted in most states here. What Australia does not have is a cap on the fees charged on the way in, and on these numbers that is the bigger half of the problem.
For venues and promoters it matters for one simple reason. Every dollar of fee added at checkout is a dollar the punter counts as the price of your show, not the platform’s. When the total price is what decides whether someone comes out on a Thursday, the fee structure in your ticketing deal is a programming issue and not just a finance one.
