Canadians want crackdown on ticket reselling and bots: poll

Canadians are fed up with bots and ticket resellers and want the government to make the secondary market illegal, a new poll by Angus Reid Institute suggests.

The vast majority of those surveyed, 81 per cent, wantbotsto be illegal and haveresellersface fines or jail time if they break the law. A similar majority 76 per cent called thebotsa "huge problem,"Angus Reid found.

CBC's Marketplace uncovered last year how sophisticated software, also called bots, canpurchase thousands of tickets within milliseconds of seats going on sale while scalpers are then able to sell the tickets online to fans, often at aprofit.

Whileticket reselling along with the botsthat purchase ticketsare not illegal in Canada,it's clear many people in this country would like the scheme outlawed.

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The issue made national headlines last year whentwo-thirds of tickets for the Tragically Hip's Man Machine Poemtour were snapped up by brokers andbots within minutes; leaving some lifelong fansdismayed, unable to afford the resale markup.

'A lot of frustration'

After tickets are gobbled up by botsfaster than any human could buy a ticket, fans are often forced to turn to secondary markets, like SeatGeek or StubHub, where prices can several times higher than the original cost.

"You're talking about cultural events, concerts, sports events ... that people like to go to," said Shachi Kurl, executive director of Angus Reid Institute.

"There's a lot of frustration in terms of being able to get access."

TheAngus Reidpoll, the first public poll on this issue, was conducted through an online survey from April 17 to 20 among a randomized sample of 1,517 Canadian adults. A probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, the institute said.

"You don't need to be someone who's a U2 fan or a Tragically Hip fan to understand the level of disappointment when tickets for those events go on sale only to be completely purchased by bots within minutes of those sales opening," said Kurl.

While only one in four surveyed had ever purchased tickets from an onlinereseller, the majority, 60 per cent, said the cost was unreasonable when they did.

The results show Canadians are "very decided" and have "pronounced views," said Kurl.

Last year, after Broadway shows became a high-profile targets of bots, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made ticket bots illegal in the state, calling the practice "predatory" and "wrong."

In Canada, while ticket bots remain legal, some provinces are taking steps to curtail the technology.

Ontario's Liberals conducted public consultations in March to "practical solutions" for fans a fair shot at buying tickets for concerts, sports and other events, while a private member's bill, introduced by MPP Sophie Kiwalain 2016, aims to stop ticket bots.

• Ontario government to consult fans about event ticket selling, buying

Also last year, Manitoba's Progressive Conservative governmentpromised to pass new laws regulating secondary ticket sales. The Prairie province is one of the few in Canada that outlaws the reselling of tickets for a greater price than the original cost.

Kurl said there is still time and an appetitefor industry to make changes.

• Manitoba concert industry looks for big changes to combat ticket scalping

"Half say this is actually something industry needs to clean up on its own," Kurlsaid.

"Industry has a lot of room based on these results to present some options or to present some potential solutions and really make some changes itself in order to avoid government intervention."