German musicians sign open letter calling for end to ticket touting

Stars and concert organizers from across the German music industry signed an open letter to the German government on Tuesday calling for stricter rules to combat ticket touting.

The letter, entitled "Against Exorbitant Prices and Fraud," warns that the practice of middlemen buying up tickets in bulk to resell them at extreme mark-ups is damaging to both fans and the industry alike.

Signatories include well-known bands such as Die Toten Hosen and Die Ärzte and star musicians such as Nina Chuba and Johannes Oerding, as well as promoters, concert agencies and associations.

"Music brings people together," the letter states. "Concerts are places of community. If fans have to stay away from concert halls because of price gouging and ticket fraud, we all lose out: the fans, the artists, the entire live music industry and society."

“We will no longer tolerate individuals enriching themselves at the fans’ expense by reselling tickets at extortionate prices,” explained Christopher Annen, chairman of the association of independent musicians Pro Musik, which initiated the letter.

The money that fans have to pay on the secondary market to get concert tickets does not go towards the production of new music, fair wages or the next tour. “It ends up in the pockets of middlemen who contribute nothing to culture but rip-offs,” the musicians complained.

Equally serious is fraud involving counterfeit tickets: “Fans sometimes pay several hundred euros only to find themselves standing at the entrance with worthless paper.”

Politicians must not leave musicians and their fans to deal with these problems alone. “What the entire industry needs is a legal framework,” the letter argues.

In many other European countries there are regulations in place to combat concert ticket fraud.

"Germany, by contrast, is a virtually unregulated haven for ticket touts. This is a political failure that the entire live music industry and its fans feel every day,” the letter says.

The German government must swiftly present a bill to tackle the issues, the signatories said. "Culture is not a commodity and tickets are not objects of speculation."

Above all, organizers must be able to determine on which platforms their tickets may be resold. Furthermore, commercial resellers must be prohibited from adding more than 25% to the ticket price. The use of automated software for the mass purchase of tickets must also be banned, they demand.