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Core 1..48 Committee (PRISM::Advent3b2 17.25) Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage CHPC Ï NUMBER 156 Ï 1st SESSION Ï 42nd PARLIAMENT EVIDENCE Tuesday, May 7, 2019 Chair Ms. Julie Dabrusin 1 Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage Tuesday, May 7, 2019 people want to be at the same show at the same time, as was the case with the final Tragically Hip tour, for example. When we're talking Ï (1535) about how we love live music, we're talking about human emotion [English] and the rabidness of fandom. Demand can far outweigh the number The Chair (Ms. Julie Dabrusin (Toronto—Danforth, Lib.)): of seats available. Just like any other hot product on the market, the This begins our 156th meeting of the Standing Committee on value of those tickets naturally goes up. The commodification of Canadian Heritage. Today we are beginning our study on the online concert tickets is consistent with how we as a nation desire and secondary ticket sales industry. consume popular goods. The reality, though, is that we are not all automatically entitled to attend a concert just because we love the We have with us Erin Benjamin, president and chief executive artist. No business or industry operates that way. officer of the Canadian Live Music Association. [Translation] I think what is most important about the resale landscape in We are also welcoming Jean-François Brousseau, president of Canada is the reality that consumers don't always know how to “buy Outbox Technology Inc. safe” when they're looking for tickets on the resale market, in We will begin with your presentation, Ms. Benjamin. particular these high-demand shows. There is significant obscurity in what we refer to as the “grey market”. It's ostensibly set up to dupe [English] fans—and extract as much money from them as possible—into Ms. Erin Benjamin (President and Chief Executive Officer, thinking they're safe when they may not be. The days of the dubious Canadian Live Music Association): Hi, everyone. Thank you very scalper in a trench coat outside the Gardens are pretty much gone much. My name is Erin Benjamin, and I am the president and CEO now. At least he had a face, even if we never saw it again. Now it's of the Canadian Live Music Association. the anonymous guy on Kijiji who seems nice but is selling you the 100th copy of a PDF bar code to that Taylor Swift show your I'll start with a bit of an introduction. Our mission is to entrench daughter's been waiting to go to all year, only to arrive at the venue the economic, social and cultural value and power of live music, on the day of to be told that the ticket has already been scanned in creating the conditions for concerts to thrive in every neighbour- and she is the 99th person holding the same piece of worthless paper. hood, town and city in Canada. We were founded in 2014. We Let me tell you, this happens all the time. currently represent 225—and growing—concert promoters, venues, clubs, festivals, talent agencies, ticketing companies and suppliers, businesses and organizations who facilitate access to live music for Maybe it's the website that's skinned to look exactly like your fans as well as visitors from across the country and around the world. favourite venue's box office. When you click “purchase”, though, Our members are dedicated to ensuring that the overall fan you realize that you've been charged surplus fees in a foreign experience is the very best it can be with each and every show. currency by a company whose exact location, let alone what country Live music is a huge part of Canada's broader music industry. It they might be in, cannot be identified. Then you look at the URL and creates tens of thousands of jobs and contributes billions to GDP. It you realize that it doesn't say, for instance, “Massey Hall box office”, has become the primary revenue stream for performing artists. Live the way you thought it did. Instead, it says something very close to performance helps artists to build fans and brands domestically and that. internationally. Its economic footprint extends well beyond the artist, promoter and venue, and into surrounding communities. Whether it's hotels, airlines, local restaurants, taxis or corner stores, many other Maybe it's speculative postings, where you're urged to buy a ticket businesses benefit from the economics of live music, while that doesn't even exist yet. Canadians enjoy an enhanced quality of life thanks to the injection of the cultural and social vibrancy that live music spaces, places and people provide. It is remarkably easy to be deceived. It happens even to the people who work in the music industry. The bottom line is that these This is an amazing industry. We love our fans, and every single deceitful and fraudulent practices are bad for the consumer, bad for day we work to put them in the same room with their favourite the reputation of our members and bad for artists. They are just bad artists, but there are times when often hundreds of thousands of for business and no one wants that. 2 CHPC-156 May 7, 2019 Thankfully, our members are actively creating solutions to build We are used to massive on-sales for big concerts in arenas and consumer trust and combat things like bots and bad guys. There are stadiums. We also have as a client, Cirque du Soleil in its worldwide four key things they're doing to keep fans safe that I would like to touring shows, so we are present in multiple countries, including underscore for the committee today. These are in addition to the fact Canada obviously. We also have a joint venture with a promoter that they are investing millions to fight the bot technology that's used called AEG, Anschutz Entertainment Group, in the United States. to circumvent systems and scoop up mass quantities of tickets. We have deployed technology in their venues in the U.S., Canada, They're also migrating towards the use of digital ticketing the U.K. and Sweden. exclusively, in order to increase security and to help us know things like who is in the building. I have been in this business for 30 years, now as president of Ï (1540) Outbox, but earlier as a founder of Admission Network here in The four things I mentioned are using ticket authentication Canada. We have been pioneering technology to make ticketing technology, providing money-back guarantees, displaying all-in easy, as well as to try to limit the impact of bad actors in this pricing and selling in local currency via secure online platforms, and business. listing the pre-sale opportunities like artist fan clubs, radio and venue promotions, etc., that exist to help fans better understand what their I've also worked for Ticketmaster, as they acquired one of our options are. Because not all events sell out, of course, these pre-sales companies. I was their chief technology officer for three years in the can help an artist extend their marketing reach. U.S. We need to stay one step ahead of the illicit market whose sole purpose is, again, to drive prices up and divert money to deceitful I am here to share my experience and answer any questions you companies and away from the legitimate concert industry and away might have. from our artists. This is a huge challenge, compounded, as I say, by a lack of public awareness about how to buy safely on the Internet. Let me start by defining a few terms, the way we use them. Different jurisdictions in Canada and elsewhere have attempted or are attempting to find solutions through legislation; however, the The primary inventory owner, the venue or the promoter, typically ability to enforce and the unintentional consequences certain aspects contracts with a ticket agency or a ticketing vendor to sell tickets of legislation can have on the genuine industry have proven to be directly to the public. That primary ticket agency is usually an highly problematic. They put Canadian businesses at a disadvantage exclusive provider of services to that venue in North America. and consumers directly in harm's way. The answer is consumer awareness on this subject, and the Secondary selling channels are different from ticket brokers in our Canadian Live Music Association would be very interested in vocabulary. They are platforms that allow sellers to reach buyers, to working with this committee to explore options that amplify the post tickets and sell to buyers, while a ticket broker is an entity that “buy safe” message to help protect fans and audiences. acquires tickets in bulk for resale, using these secondary channels, including their own. There is a significant difference between a There will always be times when we want to be in the same room secondary selling channel and a ticket broker in the definition. with our favourite artists, of course, but the reality is that not all of us can be. It's human nature. It's that rabid fandom, again, to do whatever we can sometimes to make sure that we are. That can B2C is a business, a broker, selling to the consumer, while C2C is include being prepared to invest in a live music experience of a an individual, or a presumed individual, selling to another lifetime at fair market value, no matter what. individual. Some of these businesses are legal. For example, in Quebec, C2C selling is legal. B2C requires certain controls.
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