Ed Sheeran in Hot Water Over Resale Restrictions Harming Fans

Fans are fuming at pop star Ed Sheeran, claiming that restrictions placed against open resale of tickets to his performances have caused them serious financial losses, according to multiple outlets.

Dates for Sheeran’s tour, which just closed after 260 shows, have been the scene for numerous battles over ticket resale. In the latest dustup, fans are complaining that they couldn’t sell on tickets to performances they could no longer attend, because the resale price couldn’t go below 10% above the price of any remaining face value tickets for the performances.

““It [price restrictions] meant I was unable to sell the tickets or recoup any money with the price being locked […] because why would anybody buy tickets for face value plus 10% when face value tickets exist,” George Fox told The Guardian after reportedly losing £340 when the show clashed with a vacation.

“That meant Ed’s team selling more [of their own tickets] as nobody could buy off anybody else who couldn’t go. Thousands went to waste, to their advantage, whether intentional or not.”

The fact that fans couldn’t move tickets on for shows they couldn’t attend on the only authorized marketplace by the promoters (who took to outright cancellation of valid tickets to shows at other tour stops if it found that they had been purchased on Viagogo) flies in the face of instructions given by the Competitions and Markets Authority in the UK to event organizers earlier this year.

[CMA] said promoters and venues should either offer a full refund to ticket buyers who cannot attend an event, or provide arrangements that allow them to “recoup or substantially reduce any direct financial loss.

Some fans complained on social media that resale tickets weren’t even being displayed among available tickets for the upcoming shows (via NME.com)

Kilimanjaro Live, Sheeran’s promoter, told The Guardian that they only implemented the resale restrictions as a result of seeing tickets for earlier performances going for many times the initial face value on “unauthorized” resale platforms.

“From the outset we have tried to find a way to be fair to fans, in order to facilitate the ethical resale of tickets and to leave as many fans as happy as possible whilst preventing the daily horror stories of them being ripped off by ticket touts profiting from the panic to get a ticket to see Ed,” a spokesperson said. “We have undoubtedly had a huge impact here.

“Whilst we understand the frustration of someone who is unable to resell and wants to drop the price accordingly to give themselves a better chance of recouping some of their money, unfortunately this throws up more questions than answers.”