(Hypebot) — UPDATE: After The Nationwide Unbiased Venue Affiliation (NIVA) referred to as on Yelp to cease sending customers to an affiliated website promoting faux tickets and inflating costs, the advice website eradicated the offending hyperlinks. Then, the disagreement between NIVA and the offending ticket reseller TicketNetwork started.
In response to NIVA, Yelp had been deceptive customers by directing them to a Yelp-branded TicketNetwork website promoting faux and overpriced tickets. “By partnering with TicketNetwork — an organization recognized for anti-competitive and predatory practices — Yelp not solely perpetuates these unethical practices but additionally undermines client belief and severely impacts unbiased venues by diverting gross sales from reliable ticketing sources,” NIVA mentioned in an announcement.
An issue since 2016
Yelp first partnered with TicketNetwork in 2016 to supply “a one-stop store for high-demand leisure tickets.” That partnership continued regardless of over 100 1-star critiques on Yelp, the platform’s lowest score.
“It’s fraud!,” wrote one Yelp person final month. “Concentrate on this website who’re scammers! They double the value for all of the the occasions and refuse for refund. Keep away!!!!”
Discover Yelp’s response and dueling TicketNetwork and NIVA responses to the takedown under.
Issues highlighted in NIVA’s letter to Yelp included:
- Sale of non-existent or inaccurately listed tickets: “Many customers have been bought tickets for occasions that both don’t exist or have incorrect dates and occasions, resulting in confusion and disappointment.”
- Lack of transparency in ticket particulars: “Tickets are sometimes bought with out specifying the part or seat, leaving customers at midnight about what they’re buying.”
- Sale of speculative or faux tickets: “Tickets bought by means of Yelp’s platform are sometimes not within the possession of the reseller, with many being outright fraudulent.”
- Value gouging: “Tickets are recurrently bought at 2-15 occasions the face worth, even when tickets at face worth are nonetheless obtainable instantly from the venue’s reliable ticketing platform.”
“Yelp has an obligation to the communities it serves, but its platform is at present complicit in predatory ticket gross sales that exploit customers and undermine unbiased venues,” mentioned Stephen Parker, Government Director of NIVA. “This isn’t only a matter of enterprise ethics; it’s about defending the cultural make-up of our communities. By partnering with an organization like TicketNetwork, which has an extended, documented historical past of authorized troubles and unethical conduct, Yelp is facilitating a system that preys on customers and undermines the integrity of the dwell leisure business.”
Learn the complete NIVA letter to Yelp right here.
Yelp Responds
In response to NIVA’s letter, a Yelp spokesperson informed Pollstar, “For 20 years, Yelp’s mission has been to attach folks with nice native companies, together with unbiased venues. We thank NIVA for bringing their considerations about TicketNetwork to our consideration and have taken speedy steps to show off that integration.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Yelp up to date its assertion to the press to incorporate that that they had “eliminated that (TicketNetwork) integration.”
TicketNetwork Reacts & NIVA Bites Again
On Wednesday afternoon, Yelp’s former companion ticket reseller TicketNetwork issued a prolonged assertion erroneously questioning NIVA’s motives and independence:
“It’s unlucky to see the customers on Yelp’s platform lose entry to a free and unbiased market internet hosting resale tickets to occasions throughout the globe.”
“The extraordinarily biased letter from the so-called “unbiased” group referenced in your article regurgitates speaking factors generated by an organization at present being sued as an unlawful monopoly by the Division of Justice and Attorneys Common representing greater than 296 million Individuals. They’re a determined try to distract customers and lawmakers from the actual causes of wildly surging costs for dwell occasions – centralized, coordinated management by a handful of main gamers working collectively to squash client selection.”
“Unbiased marketplaces recurrently characteristic tickets supplied at far lower than the unique bought worth from the field workplace, saving customers thousands and thousands of {dollars} yearly. Regardless of a coordinated business effort to color any platform not topic to direct artist administration or promoter management as providing “faux” or “counterfeit” tickets, marketplaces like TicketNetwork assure that buyers will obtain the tickets bought, an acceptable alternative (topic to purchaser approval), or a full refund.”
“NIVA and different business astroturfing efforts are pushing for laws designed to reinforce Dwell Nation Leisure’s allegedly monopolistic dominance of ticketing by extending it to ticket resale. TicketNetwork, joined by different unbiased marketplaces and quite a few client advocacy teams urge help for true reform in ticketing, both remoted to true “all-in” worth transparency TICKET Act as handed by the Home of Representatives, or through the excellent reforms promised by the BOSS and SWIFT Act championed by the late Rep. Invoice Pascrell of New Jersey.”
“their falsehoods gained’t idiot anybody”
NIVA Government Director Stephen Parker responded: “NIVA was based to avoid wasting the unbiased dwell business, which is made up of mom-and-pop companies throughout the nation. These levels, their staff, and artists wanted a collective voice to combat for survival in the course of the COVID shutdowns.”
“NIVA, in actual fact, is a corporation that stands as a counterweight to the anti-competitive practices of publicly-traded, multinational conglomerate promoters.”
“It’s no shock that TicketNetwork is spreading disinformation in regards to the small companies and nonprofits that make up the unbiased dwell neighborhood to distract from the value gouging and fraud rampant on their legally-fraught platform. We’re sure their falsehoods gained’t idiot anybody.”
Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Company, and a Berklee Faculty Of Music professor.