The firm admitted that Seatwave and Get Me In, designed for fans to offload unwanted tickets, had been exploited by so-called professional sellers who hiked up the prices.
Stars had attacked such sites — with Ed, 27, even banning people from attending his gigs with tickets bought from them. Adele, 30, had seen tickets for some of her shows being resold for up to 30 times their face value and said it would not be tolerated.
Both had recently gone with Twickets as their official resale partner — a fan-to-fan site that allows users to sell on at face value or less.
Ticketmaster has now said fans will be able to do that directly on their site — but for no more than they paid.
There will be a 15 per cent surcharge on every ticket to cover any booking fees paid.
Seatwave and Get Me In will be shut down In the UK and Ireland in October and across Europe later in the year.
There will also be no new events listed on either site with immediate effect. But fans and touts will still be able to sell tickets for a profit on rival sites such as Viagogo and StubHub.
Ticketmaster UK boss Andrew Parsons said: “We know fans are tired of seeing others snap up tickets just to resell for a profit on secondary websites, so we’ve taken action.
"Our number one priority is to get tickets into the hands of fans so that they can go to the events they love.
“Our new exchange lets fans sell tickets they can’t use directly through their Ticketmaster account, for the price originally paid or less.
"Selling tickets through Ticketmaster is really simple.
“We do all the hard work and outline the maximum that can be charged for the ticket — and it doesn’t cost fans a penny to sell them.”
It is a huge victory for Sun readers, who told us countless stories of heartbreak as tickets for their favourite acts sold out in minutes, only to be available on resale sites minutes later but at vastly inflated prices.
Digital and Creative Industries Minister Margot James said: “We want real fans to be able to see their favourite artists and events at a fair price.
"This is a welcome move from Ticketmaster and shows that they’re following our lead and taking a tough stance on cracking down on unacceptable behaviour in the market.”
Alex Neill, from consumer group Which?, said: “It sounds like a step in the right direction for fans and we now hope its new platform will promote much-needed transparency in an industry that has been plagued by sharp practices.”
At it for years
TICKETMASTER should be applauded for its U-turn. It is just a shame it couldn’t see how its websites were allowing touts to rip off fans for years.
In The Sun — and when chatting to Ticketmaster, as we did often — we said prices on secondary sites should be capped at the original price.
Now out of the blue Ticketmaster has done what we have been asking for years. But there could be a catch. Ticketmaster has often talked about so-called dynamic pricing for tickets when sold in the first place. Prices go up and down depending on demand.
Ticketmaster have been trialling it in the US. It is likely to come here — perhaps with the website revamp in October.
£7m a year for exploiting 'real' fans
TICKETMASTER boss Michael Rapino owns an £8.6million Malibu beach retreat to go with his £11.5million LA home thanks to his exploitation of real music fans.
Rapino, who runs parent company Live Nation, has seen Ticketmaster become the market leader by taking a cut from the initial sale of concert tickets. But the firm then takes a second cut as touts sell on tickets to fans for sky-high prices through secondary sites he also owns.
In November, Rapino signed a five-year contract to carry on as CEO of Live Nation until 2022, in a deal worth £7million a year plus shares.
Adele’s sold-out tour in 2015 was a bumper pay day for Live Nation. On the initial sale, Ticketmaster added booking fees of five to ten per cent. With Adele, it varied from £4.75 for the cheapest £38 ticket to £12.85 on the priciest £95 ones. But as owner of Get Me In and Seatwave, it took a second cut from resales.
On Get Me In, as well as a fee of ten per cent of the resale ticket value charged to the seller, the buyer must also pay the firm 15 per cent on top. Some £38 Adele tickets were selling for as much as £714.87 on Get Me In.
Seatwave charges a lower fee of 12 per cent to sellers. But the amount it charges buyers is around 18 to 20 per cent. Asked about secondary ticketing in 2015, Rapino, wed to TV actress Jolene Blalock, said: “We think it is a huge opportunity.”
Dealing blow to greed
THE fan-to-fan ticket exchange on Ticketmaster is aimed at deterring touts who want to rack up vast profits.
Tickets can only be sold on for the price originally paid for them — or less. This includes the cost of any fees paid initially.
Ticketmaster can see the price that was paid and caps it at that.
Selling will be done on the main Ticketmaster website and app, which are being updated in October. Fans who are unable to make an event can simply click a button on the Ticketmaster website to release the ticket on the exchange for the price they set.
From yesterday, no more events were being added to the Get Me In and Seatwave sites.
But sellers can add tickets to existing live events.
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