ToutsOut: We support FanFair Alliance’s new ten-step guide to beating online touts

It’s a big week for our friends at the FanFair Alliance. This morning, they published a handy new ten-tip guide providing pointers for buying tickets online and ways to reduce the risk of falling victim to ticket touts.

The guide, which you can download here, is the latest effort in FanFair’s campaign to combat industrial-scale online ticket touting and has the support of Ed Sheeran, Radiohead, Mumford & Sons, numerous MPs and every single one of us at Ticket Arena & Event Genius.

Speaking about the advice, Reshad Hossenally, managing director here at Ticket Arena & Event Genius, said: “Easy access to clear and reliable consumer information is key for the industry. With operators offering so many different ways to buy tickets, groups like FanFair and sellers like ourselves can help educate customers on what way to buy is right for them.”

The launch of the guide is the latest effort in FanFair’s campaign, which has gained some well-deserved momentum via headlines in the national press, dominated the conversations at industry events like ILMC29 and now looks set to help change to government legislation.

Tomorrow the government’s Culture, Media & Sport committee will host a further evidence session on ticket abuse and following Tuesday’s Select Committee, the Digital Economy Bill will reach the final day of Report Stage on Wednesday 22nd March in the House of Lords.

With government promising that they are accepting all the recommendations made by the Waterson Review, then we could see updates to legislation that would mean unlimited fines for the use of ticket buying bots and a new obligation for secondary ticket selling sites to include additional information, like original booking reference and resale T&C’s – to their ticket listings.

If you work in the live events industry and want to get involved with FanFair, then you can join Ticket Arena & Event Genius and sign their declaration against online touts.