Federal Council protects gray market for concert tickets
In the opinion of the Federal Council, the commercial purchase and resale of tickets by secondary ticket sellers is in principle covered by economic freedom. Concert tickets can therefore also be resold for profit.
In a motion, SVP National Councillor Sebastian Frehner from Basel-Stadt is calling for an amendment to the Federal Act on Unfair Competition (UWG), which stipulates that tickets for concerts and sporting events may not be more expensive than the price originally set if they are resold.
In its response, the Federal Council now explains that the free determination of the price is also part of free competition when reselling products and services. The resale itself is an expression of freedom of contract and a legitimate form of exercising property rights.
Anyone who buys a ticket for admission to concerts, sporting events or other events online must also be able to resell their ticket. The resale of tickets by individuals is also unlikely to cause any problems.
On gray markets, on the other hand, professional secondary ticket sellers sometimes offer tickets at inflated prices before the official presale starts or immediately afterwards, either on site or via a platform on the internet. In their general terms and conditions, the organizers stipulate that the tickets cannot be resold. However, this prohibition can hardly be enforced against the end customers.
The traders operating on the gray market usually buy the tickets using sophisticated computer programs or use groups of school-age young people to buy them and then sell them on to a larger number of people at inflated prices. This can trigger an artificial shortage of supply, at least temporarily, which drives up prices. This practice may violate applicable law, in particular the prohibition of deception in the Federal Act of December 19, 1986 against Unfair Competition.
Nevertheless, the Federal Council recommends that Parliament rejects the Frehner motion. In its view, it goes too far.
