Recently, large-scale concerts and music festivals have sprung up, and many of them have sold out quickly, and it has become difficult to find a ticket. The topic of "concerts are a huge utopia" also rushed to the hot search, with 112,000 discussions and 200 million views. The popularity of the performance market has also brought many problems, and the China Consumers Association and many consumer associations have also issued documents to express their concern about the consumption of the performance market. A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily noticed that the most questioned by consumers in the performance market is the ticket - the official platform tickets are empty in seconds, but the second-hand platform has sufficient tickets; Clone tickets and pillar tickets are hard to prevent; Under the strong real-name policy, tickets claiming to be non-scalpers are still rampant, but it makes it more difficult for consumers to refund tickets...... These chaos emerge in an endless stream, and the performance ticketing market urgently needs to be regulated.
It's hard to grab tickets, and it's hard to clone tickets
In the first quarter of 2024, there will be 119,000 commercial performances (excluding performances in entertainment venues), a year-on-year increase of 72.71% over 2023, a box office revenue of 10.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 116.87% over 2023, and a year-on-year increase of 77.88% over 2023.
The concert market has picked up, and it has become the norm for large-scale concerts this year to be sold out quickly and tickets are hard to grab and sell out instantly. Ms. Guo, a veteran fan, described the process of grabbing tickets: recording the ticket purchase information in advance, setting the alarm clock, restarting the mobile phone ten minutes in advance, checking the network status, and frequently refreshing the card seconds to buy tickets...... I made all the preparations, but in the end I only got the "out of stock registration". Not only that, she found that all the fans and friends she knew didn't grab tickets, but when Ms. Guo browsed social platforms, she found that some people claimed to be "ticketing" to sell tickets for this concert at a premium of several thousand yuan, and there were quite a few tickets, and some people even sold tickets for this concert before the tickets were released.
The topic of "concert tickets are difficult to grab" is extremely hot, and many scammers have seized the hearts of netizens who are eager to buy concert tickets and carry out fraud. At the end of March this year, Ms. Hu from the jurisdiction of Luoxi Police Station wanted to go to the Changzhou Phoenix Legend concert, but she didn't grab the tickets, and when she swiped the short video, she was nicknamed "XX Ticketing" Douyin netizen private message, the other party said that there were internal tickets for the Phoenix Legend offline concert, and the two discussed paying a deposit of 200 yuan in the form of red envelopes on the Taobao trading platform.
During this period, the "ticketing" asked Ms. Hu for her personal identity information, claiming that she would be asked to pay the balance after the ticket grabbing was successful. Soon after, the other party said that the ticket purchase information had been entered into the system, and Ms. Hu asked for a screenshot suspiciously, and at the urging of the other party, she still transferred the remaining 850 yuan to the other party in the form of Taobao red envelopes. But after a few days, Ms. Hu not only couldn't find the order and couldn't contact the other party, but also understood that she had been deceived, and then immediately called the police.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily learned that before the official ticket sales for the concert, fraudsters usually publish false information such as "there are internal ticket purchase channels", or make up the statement that "I have bought tickets but I can't go because I have something, so I transfer them with tears" to defraud fans who are bent on asking for tickets. There are also fraudsters who lurk in social media groups in advance and commit fraud by sending links to fake websites or forging fake tickets.
In June last year, a netizen said that he spent 1,600 yuan to buy fake tickets for the Mayday concert in Wuhan half an hour after the show started. Netizens said that the QR code on the ticket was scanned out and jumped to a good page to display the real ticket, all the digital information except for the seats are the same, but the printing is very rough, and there is no anti-counterfeiting chip.
Recently, the Huai'an police issued an anti-fraud warning in May due to the problem of concert tickets: since the beginning of this year, more than 10 people in Huai'an have been deceived by "ticketing staff".
Scalpers still have tickets under the strong real name
In order to crack down on scalpers and standardize the order of the performance market, on September 13, 2023, the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Standardized Management of Large-scale For-profit Performance Activities and Promoting the Healthy and Orderly Development of the Performance Market" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice") was released. The notice requires large-scale performance activities to implement a real-name ticket purchase and real-name admission system.
This requirement is known by netizens as a "strong real-name" system: only one ticket can be purchased per ID document for each performance, and the identity information of the ticket buyer and the attendee is consistent. That is to say, the identity information of the ticket holder must be consistent with the viewer, and the information of the audience cannot be changed after the consumer purchases the ticket.
But a reporter from Beiqing Daily found that even a "strong real-name" concert did not interrupt the scalper's business. On some second-hand platforms or social media, there are still many concert tickets on sale, and even claim that you can "watch it before you pay". And the posts of "strong real name" concert tickets can be found with a casual search, and some agents even said that "machine ten manuals" grabbed tickets, and even grabbed serial tickets.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily got in touch with a ticket agent on the social platform, and after adding his private chat account, he was pulled into a ticket-grabbing group with the "fastest hand speed", and there were already 200 people in the group, updating the concert ticket-grabbing task from time to time.
On April 26, Xue Zhiqian's Xiamen concert went on sale for the first time, and the ticket-grabbing group was instantly swiped by the ticket-grabbing task. From time to time, the group owner sends the consumer's personal name, ID number and ticket purchase needs, and marks a specific ticket-grabbing platform, asking everyone in the group to help grab it together, and then confirm it in a private chat after grabbing it.
The group leader believes that there is great power in numbers, and there will always be people who grab tickets. The group owner will judge the difficulty of grabbing tickets according to the popularity of the star of the concert, and then decide how much the commission is, a group friend named Xiaoyuan revealed: "The commission for grabbing tickets generally ranges from 100 yuan to 800 yuan, but the group owner will never add so much when selling tickets, and it is normal to double them." ”
It's hard to buy a ticket, and it's even harder to get a refund
Not only is it difficult to buy tickets for concerts, but it is even more difficult to get a refund once you buy a ticket.
Recently, a netizen in Beijing broke the news that she and her husband bought two Zhang Jie's Hohhot concert on May 18 on a ticketing platform on April 23, but her husband was notified on May 10 that he was going on a temporary business trip on the day of the concert.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily noticed that some concerts that promote "strong real names" have adopted a strategy of not returning or exchanging once sold. Even if some concerts can be refunded, you need to bear a high handling fee. Even so, the refund time given to consumers by concert ticketing is measured in hours. In 2023, Rene Liu's concert and Liang Jingru's concert have opened a "refund window time", and if you miss this time, you will not be able to refund your ticket. Netizens shouted "Liu Ruoying, refund within 12 hours" and "Liang Jingru, refund within 24 hours".
In fact, the Notice also clarifies that the performance organizers of large-scale for-profit performance activities should also establish a refund mechanism for large-scale performance activities and formulate a fee standard for cascade refunds. However, in the current practice process, there are still problems such as high refund fees and different refund policies for the same performance in different cities.
For example, in Lin Junjie's last three concerts, the performances in Suzhou and Harbin have unconditional refund rules, while the Tianjin shows do not. In terms of refund fees, the Suzhou session is 20% and 50% of the ticket price, the Harbin session is 30% of the ticket price, and the Tianjin session is 3% and 30% of the ticket price.
Not only that, since most concerts are free of charge within 48 hours of sale, some "return tickets" have passed the unconditional refund time limit when they are sold.
Some netizens said that they grabbed the return ticket for Zhang Jie's concert in Shanghai on March 23 at 12:20 noon on March 21, but suddenly there was a work arrangement and could only apply for a refund, and the customer service refused on the grounds of "exceeding the deadline for refund". The netizen found that the return ticket he purchased was on sale at 12:20, but the refund time ended at 12 o'clock on the same day.
The Jiangsu Consumer Protection Committee issued a document on the 9th, saying that it will no longer accept any refund applications about a week before the concert starts, and the refund fee will often be hundreds of thousands of yuan, and the refund fee collection standard for each concert is not uniform and opaque, which undoubtedly allows consumers to pay the ticket price in advance while limiting the right of consumers to refund tickets, increasing the burden of consumer refunds.
Ticket stall distribution is rough Pillar tickets are rampant
Even if you successfully buy a ticket and enter the performance site to watch it, you still can't completely avoid the trouble caused by tickets.
Recently, Mr. Wang, a netizen, bought a ticket for the Phoenix Legend Changzhou concert on Damai.com at a price of 980 yuan, but it turned out to be a "pillar ticket", and the view was blocked by the pillars of the venue, and nothing could be seen. Mr. Wang said that although the staff later helped them coordinate a seat next to them, they were evicted shortly after. To his disappointment, when Mr. Wang later contacted Damai to request a refund, he was told that he did not meet the conditions for a refund.
This situation is not unique, in June last year, Liang Jingru concert also had audience members encounter "pillar tickets", some consumers asked for a refund was denied, and the concert organizer sued the concert organizer in court, demanding a refund of the ticket price and pay punitive damages.
At present, most concert tickets are divided into two categories: grandstand tickets and infield tickets. With the boom in the performance market, some stadiums that were not originally used for performance activities have become concert venues. Due to the different structure of the venue, many performances also have to temporarily set up a structural stage in the venue, resulting in some tickets that were originally better areas becoming "pillar tickets" and "wall root tickets" with a large blind spot, and "only hearing the sound and not seeing people" throughout the performance, which seriously affected the viewing experience.
In addition, some performances do not support consumers to choose their own seats, and they are in the state of "opening the blind box" when the ticket is issued, and the seat number can only be known after purchasing the ticket. Only when you go to the venue can you know whether the viewing experience is good, whether there is any obstruction, etc.
There is a view that the ticketing system should clearly inform consumers of which seats may have blind spots or occlusions before selling tickets, and adjust the price of "pillar tickets" so that the price paid by consumers matches the service they receive.
However, a reporter from Beiqing Daily paid attention to the fact that Damai.com seemed to have learned from the experience of the Phoenix Legend's "pillar ticket" incident, and marked the tickets for Jolin Tsai's concert in Jinan, and built a single stall for the location of the stands with a poor view, but the price was the same as that of the stands with other open views, all of which were 690 yuan. This behavior has caused dissatisfaction among many consumers: "Damai is afraid that consumers will buy one and return three, and they are specially marked for fear that consumers will say that they don't know, so that they can reasonably circle money, which is like letting you sign the free overtime clause in the labor contract." ”
The Jiangsu Consumer Protection Commission believes that the price paid by consumers when purchasing tickets includes the expectation of the sound effect that can be heard and the view that can be seen from the seat, and the "pillar ticket" and "wall root ticket" are far from the service that consumers expect to receive, and the price paid by consumers does not match the services obtained, which is a fair trading condition that does not obtain quality assurance.
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Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhang Xin, intern Zhu Lijun, Zhu Yinhua
Editor/Fan Hongwei