Aventus, an open-source blockchain-based ticketing platform, commissioned a survey and found consumers are frustrated with the current event ticketing process.
The results of the study suggest the process of purchasing event tickets is flawed. In fact, 11 per cent of millennials said they’d fallen victim to ticket fraud. As digital natives, millennials tend to feel more comfortable providing information and purchasing items online, which can lead to an increased likelihood of being scammed.
An important pain point to recognize in the process of purchasing event tickets are extra fees added to already inflated prices. Unsurprisingly, roughly 89 per cent of those surveyed find hidden fees during the checkout process frustrating, and 81 per cent do not believe additional service fees are justified. It’s fitting, then, that ticket buyers are looking primarily to ticketing platforms (57 per cent of respondents) to protect them from excessive prices, followed by event venues (14 per cent) and the government (11 per cent).
These flaws in the system have driven event goers to pursue other methods of purchasing tickets. Over 31% of respondents have purchased an event ticket from a scalper. If nearly a third of event goers have turned to a potentially illegal and dangerous method of purchasing tickets—with no guarantee of ticket authenticity, either—the existing structure clearly has major issues.
Advances in technology have led to an increase of computer programs called “bots,” which can perform any number of actions online. These bots have hijacked the ticketing industry, purchasing around 60 per cent of major event tickets (according to Ticketmaster themselves) then listing them at a significant markup on secondary market sites. This process has become standard, but more than 85 per cent of U.S. consumers who have purchased tickets online feel it’s unethical.
Other interesting facts include:
- 60% of respondents have used the secondary market site Stubhub, where bots commonly list marked-up tickets;
- More millennials (more than half) have paid above face value for tickets than any other generation; and
- Respondents who had purchased tickets from a scalper were four times as likely to fall victim to ticket fraud than those who had not
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