It only took two hours on Wednesday for the Festival d’été de Québec (FEQ) to sell out all of its general admission passes for its 55e edition, unheard of. Just minutes later, hundreds of them were on resale sites or Marketplace for double or even triple the original price, angering music lovers who couldn’t get their hands on the holy grail in time. .
“WOW, you guys are amazing! […] It’s a record ! Thank you for your enthusiasm again this year! rejoiced the festival team on its social networks on Wednesday afternoon, struck by the speed with which the 200,000 tickets flew away.
At the same time, comments of disappointment and anger from music lovers who couldn’t get a ticket — and saw resale prices skyrocket — began to multiply on the Web.
“You surprise me that there were no more tickets in two hours, they are on the resale sites and Marketplace”, drops, annoyed, Léa Julien. She did consider paying a few extra dollars for a pass, but the prices quickly put her off.
While a general admission ticket to attend all 11 days of shows normally costs $140, resale tickets instead charge between $250 and $400. $699 for the Green Day show. Others ask for 899, in the same category, for Foo Fighters or Imagine Dragons.
“It’s out of the question that I pay so much and let people take advantage of the system like that. We will find a plan B for our summer vacation and put it off until next year, ”says the young woman.
A regular at the festival for more than 15 years, Patrick Bergeron also fears having to settle for free shows from the FEQ this year. “I didn’t understand anything,” he says. I connected in the evening and there was already nothing left whereas last year it took two weeks before being sold out “.
Resale at high prices is not the only problem, he points out. There are also those who rent day passes for 40 or 50 dollars. “Renting isn’t new, you do it for the nights you don’t plan to go. But there, many of them have got their hands on a package of tickets that they are renting out for 11 days at a super price. It’s going to be the festival of resale and rental of passes this year! “, he laments.
“It hurts our hearts”
In interview with The duty, FEQ communications director Samantha McKinley says the festival team is making every effort to ensure that passes end up in the hands of true music fans. A waiting room system has been put in place to respect the principle of first come first served, only one transaction is authorized per credit card and the number of tickets available per transaction is limited to four.
In addition, the team closely monitors the presence of robots that would like to make massive purchases. “This year, few robots have availed themselves of ticket purchases in our opinion, […] we know in particular that the average number of tickets sold per transaction has fallen compared to last year”.
Of course, she does not deny that resale exists. “To see the pricing that gets carried away in resale, it sure hurts our hearts. We are an NPO that works very hard to diversify its income and be able to offer tickets at low prices. […] But our means are limited to prohibit it. Our legal remedies against resellers are limited.
However, she refuses to believe that these resellers alone explain the record time recorded on Wednesday to sell the approximately 200,000 passes. “There is a real enthusiasm. We are coming out of the pandemic, people want to find the festivals. We also received rave reviews about the programming,” she says. The 55e edition of the FEQ will indeed welcome big names such as Foo Fighters, Imagine Dragons, Billy Talent, Lana del Rey, Weezer, or even Green Day.
Frequent problem
The resale of festival or show tickets at exorbitant prices is a “huge” and increasingly frequent problem in Quebec, according to Ève Paré, the general manager of the Association québécoise de l’industrie du Disque.
The problem was somewhat resolved in 2012, with the adoption of Bill 25, which allows the Consumer Protection Office (OPC) to act more quickly against reseller sites displaying prices higher than the original price. However, it has experienced an upsurge since the post-pandemic cultural recovery, estimates Mme Ready.
“Sometimes there are tickets on sale for double the price for a show tour that has just started and isn’t even sold out yet,” she says.
The ADISQ has also collected several complaints from its members on this subject in the last year and has transferred everything to the OPC. “The investigation is still ongoing, we are waiting, we can’t wait to see the outcome. »
“It’s a shame to see tickets being sold for so much. With inflation affecting everyone, it is more important than ever to pay the right price for our show tickets,” she insists.