Where Is My Seat? Why Is It More Expensive? My Queueing Order is at 100,000.
It is difficult to regulate the pricing of premium tickets, such as the use of macros and black-market trading. In relation to this issue, let’s check the revised performance law, performance cancellation cases, performer measures, and the policies of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
News
After the revision of the Public Performance Act, on October 1, 2024, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced that it had arrested seven suspects in violation of the Act as the first case. Ticket scalping mainly occurs online, and they were job seekers skilled in using macros, which are programs that rapidly process large amount of information by automating repeated commands. According to the police investigation, “Over a period of five months, they made criminal profits worth approximately over 130 million won, and we will conduct a search and sizure through close cooperation with the ticket company.”
Interview
ST conducted an interview with a Soongsilian who bought a premium ticket to go to a concert of a K-POP idol, EXO. The production cost was 90,000 won, but the price of the premium ticket was about five times more expensive, which was 550,000 won. Despite the high price, she was willing to buy it since she failed to book the original ticket because of macro. However, she has never seen a case of official punishment but she has only witnessed that a young child sold a ticket at a much higher price, and the parents apologized so the consumer will drop the charges, paying compensation instead.
Revision of the Public Performance Act
Originally, punishment for ticket scalping is stipulated in the Punishment of Minor Offenses Act. According to Article 3, it limits only a person who resells tickets on the spot. However, because of the advent of macro programs, there was a limitation that did not reflect the reality of scalping, which was done online. To complement this limitation, the Public Performance Act was revised. According to Article 4-2 (Prohibition of Illegal Sale of Tickets), Paragraph 2, “no one shall illegally sell tickets, etc. by using a program that automatically and repeatedly inputs a specified command in an information and communications network defined in Article 2 (1) 1 of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, which was newly inserted on March 21, 2023.”
Solution and Plan
Recognizing that illegal ticket trade is a serious problem, the organizer made an unprecedented decision. Jang Beom-jun planned a small scale performance, but ticket scalping was so prevalent that he eventually decided that all performance tickets will be cancelled and the system was changed to a lottery system. Moreover, IU introduced a secret agent system (secret inspector). This was helpful to both the singer and her fans, as fans who report illegal ticket transactions concerning concert tickets were rewarded.
Despite the revision, there were questions about the effectiveness of the enforcement system. Even if ticket scalping that uses macro programs is regulated, it is still difficult to detect. Thus, all cases of trading by paying more for admission tickets, regardless of the macro program, will be banned. To create a fair market order, we plan to appoint public relations ambassadors to eradicate ticket scalpers, promote promotional content, and support reward events for reporting ticket scalpers.
Kang Ha-yeon (ST Reporter)
khy200408@soongisl.ac.kr