Canadian Heritage Committee on May 7th, 2019

[Jean-Françoys Brousseau]

Now there is an incentive for platforms to manage an honourable secondary market with price caps and whatnot. It doesn't kill the whole market, but it creates a channel for those who are willing to stay within a certain range of prices. It provides—I don't want to say “legal”—a legitimate channel, as an alternative to the other channels.

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Erin, you described some guarantees in terms of buybacks and things. Is that in existence anywhere?

[Erin Benjamin]

Yes, guaranteed refunds do exist.

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

How would that operate? How would that function?

[Erin Benjamin]

Again, I might refer to Jean-Françoys, because I'm not—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

You're okay to answer the question.

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

She's just telling me to be quiet.

[Erin Benjamin]

It depends on each individual ticketing company, but in some provinces, such as B.C., they're now required to provide a refund, should you not be able to use the ticket. Again, I would refer to my colleagues who actually work on the ground selling tickets to describe that process.

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thanks very much.

[Erin Benjamin]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

We will now go to Mr. Yurdiga, for seven minutes.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank you guys for coming out and telling us a little about our problem. It's a huge problem.

When I was growing up, scalpers were underground at the site, so you knew who they were. It was easier to control and clamp down on them, but the digital age has changed everything. You don't know who you're dealing with, or which country they come from. Even if we change the technology, it always seems they come up with a way to get around it. That's been a challenge for many years. As we get better, they get even better, so it's always a cat and mouse situation.

From your perspective, what can we do, not only legislatively but as part of investing in the technology. I know many people who have bought fake tickets. The site looks legitimate. You can't tell the difference. All of a sudden, they buy four or five tickets for the family. They show up and it's so sad. It's a fake ticket. What kind of technology can we implement to damper that effect? What can we do?

Education is everything, but sometimes, when you're going on a site that looks exactly like a reputable site, that becomes a problem.

[Jean-Françoys Brousseau]

There are two aspects to this question. We can secure a ticket. We and other companies have technology today that will make a ticket your own. It will not be transferable and that way you know that you own it until you want to transfer it yourself. It cannot be shared and it cannot be duplicated.

However, not every venue or promoter is willing to engage in that, because a ticket is inherently transferable. When you ticket, it's a bearer's certificate, so there is no law. If you try to enforce non-transferability or a controlled transferability, there is no law to support it. People could claim that you're not allowed to prevent transferability. We have to make up our minds as to whether we want to put technology in place to secure the ticket, including the laws that go with that, or leave it to the market to deal with it.

[Erin Benjamin]

Yes, I agree. Ticket authentication is technology that some of our members are working with, and again, I would refer you to people here today and next week who are actually working on that technology. I refer to some of our members who are spending millions of dollars trying to stay, as we say, one step ahead of the bots, or the bad guys, to figure it out. In terms of what we can do, we can understand the current landscape, where we are today and what the predictions are for tomorrow. We can take a look at global leaders, see where the innovation lies, invest in that and talk about that. Again, tie it back to public awareness.

If you Google Adele at Massey Hall, whatever, hypothetically, the first 10 links will not be the Massey Hall box office. It is just incredibly.... This is why people in the music industry have been known to buy tickets from some broker, in some foreign country, by accident. It all goes hand in hand.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you.

The challenge is that it's costing the industry billions of dollars. If you look at the whole spectrum, whether it's sports, music or some other entertainment, the challenge right now is the inability of families to recuperate some of the losses when they buy fake tickets. I don't know what can be done, because these families are not going to buy the next set of tickets. They are turned off the whole thing. They have lost thousands of dollars and are not getting anywhere.

Is there any way to have a ticket authorized by another site when you buy it? Is that a possibility? How expensive is that to implement?

[Jean-Françoys Brousseau]

It's not a question of expense. I think it's a question of willingness to engage in that.

There is no fraud that I know of in tickets that you buy from a legitimate box office at major venues. If you buy a ticket from us or from Ticketmaster, you're going to get in.

The problem comes when you buy it from the secondary market. There, the only way to do it is to have oversight on the transferability. If you buy from a secondary market, they have to be connected to the primary market in order to validate that the ticket can be shared, it exists and it's valid. We do that. Ticketmaster does that also.

The technology exists. It's used in the major venues but it's not used everywhere, and it's not a question of costs. It's a question of education. It's a question of willingness to engage in the problem, to recognize the problem. It's not the venue's problem, in a sense. They didn't do anything wrong. They have to engage. They have to be educated so that they can engage.

On the consumer side, they should know better than to buy from Kijiji or whatever website. I've heard hundreds of times of somebody coming into the building and they can't get in. The person behind me, let's say, the husband, has the ticket. The lady behind says, “I told you, Sam, not to buy these tickets from that source.” I don't know how many times I've heard that. People know that they're taking a risk. In that sense, not all of them but some people know that they're taking a risk. Education on the public side is extremely important.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Is it getting worse, or are people becoming more aware? Right now we hear a lot of stories but is it getting better because a lot of people get burnt, or is it increasing?

[Jean-Françoys Brousseau]

I think it's getting a little better. I like to hit Kijiji, but that's what it is. There's a lot of fraud there.

These non-ticketing channels, if you will, that are not specialized—they sell anything—are just not the right place for ticket transactions. People are starting to realize that—or have to realize that. Legitimate platforms have policies so that if you show up and there's a problem, they will reimburse you or provide you with alternate tickets that they have in case that happens. There is a cleaning-up that's happening. There's always a bad actor coming in and trying to make a quick buck, but that's unusual.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

We will now give the floor to Mr. Nantel for seven minutes.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank our two witnesses for joining us.

The ticketing world has certainly evolved tremendously, Mr. Brousseau. I remember some 20 years ago, Serge Grimaux was returning from eastern countries where he had made a fortune by installing a new system.

[Jean-Françoys Brousseau]

He was my client back then.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Oh really, he was your client? How funny!

[Jean-Françoys Brousseau]

He installed our system in the Czech Republic.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

So the environment has changed considerably. What I seem to be noticing here, however, is that this is a consumer issue and not a heritage or cultural issue. This is about the client's right to purchase a ticket without getting ripped off with a fake.

Ms. Benjamin, you did a good job of expressing the dismay of parents who bought their daughter a ticket for a Taylor Swift concert only to find out that the same seat was sold 100 times and that their daughter could, therefore, not attend the concert. It is frightening and it's very sad, it's true.

Even though this is a problem for consumers, I feel that it is to the benefit of producers because, as one of you said earlier, their objective is to sell seats as quickly as possible to be able to announce another show. I understand them. Even though producers want everyone to have a good ticket at a good price, at the end of the day, the problem affects the consumer.

Ms. Benjamin, I think I read something from you at some point when you talked about difficulties with the temporary stays of certain artists from abroad who were so popular that producers could schedule Canadian acts to open their shows. So I would like to hear your thoughts on other issues.

Could any other issues related to the production of live stage acts come before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage?