Author|bean sprouts
Behind the continuous heating up of the performance market, the contradictions between consumers, ticketing platforms, and scalpers are also intensifying repeatedly.
On the one hand, there are consumers who frequently fall into scalper scams and pay high prices to buy scalper tickets but cannot enter. At the Deng Ziqi concert held in Changsha on April 12, a large number of fans said that they bought tickets but couldn't get in, shouted "refund tickets" outside the venue, and even "rushed the card" directly despite the obstruction, and there was chaos outside the venue.
Coincidentally, on April 18, Jay Chou sang at Hangzhou Big Lotus Stadium, but some netizens said that he spent nearly 2w yuan to buy 6 invitations but could not enter the venue. The reason is that a suspected "insider" took the netizen to visit the stage area under construction in advance, and also said that he could arrange to watch the concert, but the netizen disappeared after paying.
On the other hand, after the strong real name, it has caused new problems such as expensive refund fees and difficult transfers. Not long ago, some netizens broke the news that they bought tickets for Deng Ziqi's Hefei concert on March 31 on a ticketing platform on March 20, and suddenly felt unwell on the night of ticket purchase and needed to be hospitalized, but after contacting the ticketing platform to refund the ticket, the other party replied that 80% of the handling fee needed to be deducted.
Entertainment Capital understands that even for concerts with a strong real-name system, many scalpers still claim that "those who have tickets in their hands and those who have a budget to come", and compared with the past, the ticket premium of scalpers is more serious. Not only that, many scalpers have developed the "proxy auction" business, and the cost of a proxy auction is as high as thousands of yuan.
The constant contradictions and problems have also triggered the controversy of netizens on the "strong real name", some people expressed doubts: "It's really better than not having a real name, you used to be able to buy tickets directly outside the venue, and sometimes you can pick up leaks, but now watching a performance is a miasma; ”
On the one hand, there are consumer complaints, and on the other hand, there are complaints from industry practitioners.
"Today's consumers are spoiled by e-commerce platforms, especially Pinduoduo, and take it for granted that 'no reason for seven days' or even 'refund only' is a matter of course, but these are two completely different business models," said one of the show's organizers.
Some fans even complained first, then refunded the tickets, and called 12345 in batches to complain to the organizers. The period before and after the show is the busiest time for the whole team, but we now have to allocate a dedicated person to deal with customer complaints from government departments and respond in a timely manner. ”
Although the labor pains continue, from the perspective of the standardization of the entire ticketing market, strong real name is a necessary and very important step.
"If there is no strong real name, the current performance market will only be more chaotic. A leading performer who has been in the concert industry for many years said: "But after strengthening the real name, all parties must refine the rules according to market feedback and do a good job of supporting the performance industry in order to make the performance industry develop healthily." “
After the "strong real name", scalpers are more rampant?
The launch of strong real names is to crack down on scalpers. However, it is undeniable that scalpers have not completely withdrawn from the market because of the popularity of strong real names, but have higher premiums and more scams.
Taking Jay Chou's "Carnival" World Tour in Changsha as an example, on Damai, the official ticketing platform for this performance, it has been clearly reminded that "strong real name" and "if the person, ticket, and certificate information do not match, you will not be able to enter". However, at the same time as the ticketing, many tickets were also sold simultaneously, and the premium was more than 3 times. Previously, many consumers reported that "there were no concert tickets when they grabbed tickets, but there were a lot of premium tickets in the ticketing room".
And what makes consumers even more tired is that after strengthening the real name, not only did it not eliminate scalpers, but it made scalpers more expensive. Some netizens said, "Originally, the price of paper ticket scalpers increased by three or five hundred, but now the invitation letter information is basically one or two thousand." ”
The reason behind it is not difficult to understand, first of all, from the perspective of the impact of strong real name on scalpers, it can be clear that strong real name has indeed hit some scalpers, especially passers-by cattle and pink cattle are becoming less and less, but there will still be a small number of tickets circulating in the secondary market.
"Many large-scale performances will have a part of the free ticket, which is actually difficult to completely real-name system, and many of them will still flow into the hands of scalpers," a veteran show organizer told us.
Secondly, after the limited number of tickets and the restriction of strong real names, scalper tickets have also begun to rise. Previously, only paper tickets were needed to enter, but now after strong real-name registration, many ticket sources are free tickets, etc., and scalper tickets need to be further internally bound to information and real-name entry.
Thirdly, the lack of openness and transparency in the allocation of ticket sources is also a current problem. Although the official requirement is that the number of tickets sold to the market by the organizers of the performance must not be less than 85% of the approved audience, in practice, many tickets for the performance will be sold on three or four platforms at the same time, and it is unknown whether the sales ratio reaches 85% or more.
This leads to the fact that scalpers cannot really be supervised by consumers, and it also reduces consumers' trust in "strong real names". Not long ago, there was an embarrassing scene at Zhao Lei's concert, the third-party ticketing platform was "sold out in seconds", but there were still a large number of vacant seats at the scene, Zhao Lei said on the stage, "People are sitting sparsely, but the tickets are really gone, I don't know what's going on."
Although the follow-up agent replied "Because there were too many people at the door, I didn't come in at the opening, and there was no problem with the ticketing", but netizens didn't pay for it, "I really smiled when I saw the reply, don't you know if there is a problem with the ticketing, the infield has been fried to 5000, from our time to no signal, ten years of fans are really tired, don't look at it and don't grab it." ”
This fully shows that behind the so-called hard to find a ticket, it is not only the shortage of performances under the popularity of the performance, but also the lack of regulation of the ticketing market.
In fact, for a long time in the past, scalpers were a well-known gray area in the ticketing market, and there was often a certain cooperative relationship between the organizer and the scalper.
"But this is mainly to see who dominates, for example, if there is a large-scale performance, in order not to break the price, will not reduce the price on the official platform, some tickets will be taken away through scalpers discounts, this is to ensure that part of the recovery", a performance industry practitioner told us.
Although at present, strong real names have not been completely eliminated, but in fact, it can be seen that scalpers have been hit and suppressed to a certain extent, with fewer ticket sources and higher risks. Including the "wrong ticket" turmoil of Deng Ziqi's Changsha concert, it is also a heavy blow to scalpers under this measure.
80% handling fee leads to controversy, and "strong real name" gives rise to new contradictions?
The contradictions brought about by strong real names not only exist between scalpers and consumers, but also between ticketing platforms and consumers.
In the past, performance tickets were clearly "not refundable", but if consumers could not show up for something, they could sell them again in the secondary market, which could also reduce some losses. However, the strong real-name system that must unify "people, tickets, and certificates" not only inhibits scalpers, but also restricts consumers' transactions in the secondary market.
In fact, in response to the measures of "strong real name", the official has simultaneously introduced the provision that "for large-scale performances with more than 5,000 people, a refund mechanism should be established for the event, and a reasonable echelon refund fee standard should be set to ensure the legitimate refund rights of ticket buyers", but this provision has also caused a series of new problems.
The most direct impact is the high refund fee. Entertainment Capital observed that the current general refund fee on the market is 0, 20%, 50%, 80% of these stalls, according to the different refund time corresponding to different degrees of refund proportion, the recent hot search of 1399 yuan ticket only 280 yuan refund, is an example under the provisions.
In fact, a certain refund fee is charged to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the organizer. After all, the performance is a high-timeliness and scarce consumer product, and if there is a large number of refunds before the performance, it will also be a big blow to the organizer, and many tickets will be a direct loss to the organizer if they cannot be sold on time.
"Because the cost of the performance is invested in advance, and it is a fixed cost, it is necessary to sell tickets in advance to recover, and if there is no restriction on malicious ticket refunds, the loss of the organizer is very large," said another practitioner of a music performance company, explaining to us the logic behind pre-sales and conditional refunds.
But as it stands, most shows now have a high refund fee of 50%, even though an 80% fee is not the norm. And what puzzles many consumers is that the high refund fee is often generated half a month or more before the opening without affecting the secondary sales time.
For example, for Jiao Maiqi's "Swimming Home" concert in Beijing, the ticketing platform shows that the ticket refund fee is 50% from May 1 to May 10, and the performance is on June 1. For the concert in Beijing from April 22nd to May 5th, the ticket refund fee is 50%, and there is still 12~21 days of ticket space before the performance time.
The combination of early pre-sales and high handling fees has sparked consumer dissatisfaction. Not only that, the different refund rules in different cities also bring trouble to consumers. Recently, tickets for more than 20 concerts of JJ Lin have been issued, but according to Damai information, the highest refund fee for Jinan Station is 30%, while the highest refund fee for Suzhou Station and Guiyang Station is 50%.
Moreover, during the reservation and ticket grabbing period for Lin Junjie Harbin Field, although the platform clearly allows for "conditional refund", the specific refund rules are not displayed on the detail page.
In addition, the waitlist fees introduced by some platforms have also sparked controversy. During the ticketing period of Jay Chou's Hangzhou field, you can use the "ticket standby" function of the ticketing platform, but according to the platform's regulations, when users use the standby function, they need to charge a service fee of 6% of the total ticket price, which was questioned by many netizens "Ugly appearance", "official scalper designated premium", "Is this considered a blatant scalper?"
This feature is a new feature of the ticketing platform that went live in November last year, and there was a lot of controversy when it was first launched. Some people believe that "compared to sky-high scalper tickets, the 6% handling fee is completely acceptable." But some people believe that this is "a disguised scalping behavior, and the platform may reduce the number of tickets in the future, and the rest will become waitlists." However, at present, the waitlist has not been widely popularized and is only applicable to some performances.
The high refund fee, inconsistent refund rules, and waitlist handling fees have all become new problems arising from the strong real name. Coupled with the reality that after the strong real name, the premium of scalpers is higher, it is inevitable that some netizens will question the meaning and rationality of "strong real name".
Labor pains continue, but "strong real name" is the only way to standardize ticketing
During the visit, more than one performance organizer told Entertainment Capital that many scalpers and consumers under the strong real name will make frenzied complaint calls when they encounter problems such as ticket refunds and handling fees, and even complain first and then refund tickets, which brings certain resistance to the promotion of the performance.
"In the process of promoting real names, we angered a lot of scalpers, and during the period when we released tickets, scalpers would make a batch of organized complaint calls, and we had to arrange a special team to deal with these complaints, which was very big," a large-scale music festival organizer told us earlier.
But for consumers, organizers, and even the standardized operation of the entire ticketing market, is it really meaningless to strengthen real names?
In fact, the implementation of any new measures and new changes in the market will cause pain. So far, strong real name is still a new means of the market, so it is inevitable that new problems such as the effect is not as expected and the rules are not uniform, but the scalper itself is a gray industry chain generated under the dynamic change of supply and demand, which is related to multiple stakeholders, and it is impossible to completely solve the problem by relying on strong real name alone.
On the positive side, the implementation of strong real-name enforcement has indeed effectively inhibited some scalpers and reduced premium scalping in the secondary market. At the same time, the corresponding refund mechanism is also a measure that is objectively beneficial to consumers, allowing consumers to purchase independently, refund tickets reasonably, and protect consumer rights and interests.
It's just that the contradiction now is that the performance market as a whole is still in short supply, and many head singers opened collectively, and after the number of scalper tickets that can be circulated in the secondary market is reduced, there is indeed a problem of higher premiums. At the same time, the opacity of ticket sales and distribution has also raised doubts among consumers about the "collusion between the organizers and scalpers".
Secondly, the refund mechanism not only protects the rights and interests of consumers, but also needs to protect the rights and interests of the organizers. However, at present, the refund mechanism is mainly dominated by the organizer, and there are no unified rules and standards in the market, which leads to the favorable refund mechanism being more inclined to the organizer, and there are problems such as high refund fees and difficulty in refunding.
Under this, the focus should not be on the reasonableness of "strong real names", but on the need to face new problems and urge relevant entities to come up with effective solutions.
On the one hand, we should do a good job in managing the source of tickets to ensure that 85% of the public ticket sales ratio is achieved. This can further reduce the space for scalpers and also let consumers know about the ticket sales. At the same time, the punishment of scalpers was increased, for example, after the recent "wrong ticket" storm of Deng Ziqi's concert, the Changsha police immediately launched an investigation, arrested two scalpers, and seized 54 tickets for Deng Ziqi's concert on the spot, with a total face price of 32,346 yuan.
On the other hand, the refund rules should be refined, and reasonable and unified refund standards should be formulated. Open up a regular ticket circulation space to solve the current contradictions such as expensive refunds and difficult ticket transfers. In addition, the responsibility for refunds is carried out, such as in case of force majeure, consumers can provide relevant certificates for full refunds, etc.
In addition, the tickets are further refined to ensure the performance experience of consumers. Last year, there were many fans who bought tickets at a high price but could only see the pillars, which seriously affected the viewing experience.
"The current ticket allocation is too simple and crude, with infield tickets at the same price, some people are in the middle and some are on the edge, and the difference between the vision and listening to the song is still very large, which is unfair to consumers themselves," said a performance organizer.
AI Mapping by Entertainment Capital
At present, most concert tickets are divided into 2 categories: grandstand tickets and infield tickets, each category corresponds to 1~4 ticket prices, and a total of 4~8 ticket prices are distinguished, but from the perspective of actual experience, the on-site experience is affected by many factors, and the experience may be very different at the same price.
Even though the problems continue, objectively speaking, from the rampant scalpers detonating public opinion last year to the implementation of strong real names, the ticketing market is constantly changing and adjusting to promote the standardization of the performance industry.
However, as the current market reflects, the new regulations will always face new pains, so these new contradictions do not mean that "strong real names" are meaningless, but rather prompt all parties to constantly discover and solve new problems, and create a better trading environment for consumers and organizers.