In a major reversal, Ticketmaster has shut down its UK secondary retail sites, Get Me In and Seatwave, switching instead to a price-capped system that is integrated into the primary platform.
Ticketmaster’s TicketesNow and Ticketmaster Resale in North America still allow a markup price for ticket resale.
No new tickets will be listed on either UK site, with the sites phased out through October, honoring the outstanding ticket sales, according to IQ magazine. The new system will be rolled out in the UK and Republic of Ireland that same month with a Europe-wide launch next year. No staff will lose their jobs with all former employees integrated into Ticketmaster.
“Our number-one priority is to get tickets into the hands of fans so that they can go to the events they love,” Andrew Parsons, Ticketmaster UK’s managing director, told the magazine. “We know that fans are tired of seeing others snap up tickets just to resell for a profit on secondary websites, so we have taken action.”
Get Me In and Seatwave were acquired by Ticketmaster in 2008 and 2014, respectively. Both operated throughout the UK with Seatwave also operating in Ireland, Italy, Finland, Spain and the Netherlands.
The new system will have a similar model to Fan-to-Fan, with sellers receiving the original price of the ticket and buyers paying a 15 percent fee to receive the ticket. Sites like FanSALE and AXS Marketplace cap the resale prices at 10 percent above face value.
The shuttering of the two ticketing platforms leaves only StubHub and Viagogo the last-standing major secondary sites in the U.K.
“Closing down our secondary sites and creating a ticket exchange on Ticketmaster has always been our long-term plan,” Parsons told the mag. “We’re excited to launch our redesigned website, which will make buying and selling tickets fast and simple, with all tickets in the same place.
“Our new Ticketmaster ticket exchange lets fans sell tickets they can’t use directly through their Ticketmaster account, for the price originally paid or less. Selling tickets through Ticketmaster is really simple: we do all the hard work and outline the maximum that can be charged for the ticket – and it doesn’t cost fans a penny to sell them.”