There’s an interesting announcement from eBay this morning regarding ticket sales for the Wembley Live Earth concert. Tickets for the event, to benefit global environmental causes, go on sale today. eBay comment sagely that “we expect that some of these tickets will be offered for sale on eBay”: I expect they’re right!
But they seem to have managed to cut right through the middle of the usual argument about whether ticket re-sales are immoral or simply good economics, by stating that at least 20% of the final sale price must be donated to an environmental charity, preferably the official one, and that the donation must be made through eBay for Charity. Lets hope this will stop the bad publicity and whinging over eBay ticket sales, and raise some money for an important cause at the same time. Kudos to the organisers for their novel approach.
4 Responses
It seems like the LiveEarth people are still having a little whinge and denying involvement with eBay’s plan: https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6566921.stm
I’d say that the compromise is a good third way and not made on the fly. At the end of the day these are commodity items that have been paid for (distinct from Live 8 in that sense). People should be free to sell what is theirs.
Ah, thanks Dan. Seems you can’t please some of the people any of the time.
It’s a good PR move by Ebay and as a business Ebay reserve the right to make a profit, whether that profit should come from a charity event, people will make there own minds up. Personally I think there are very good reasons for not allowing touts to profit from charity events.
Well well well “tickets are not transferable” I can feel a u-turn about to be announced, hopefully before Sir Bob appears on the 6′ o’clock news and twists the public perception knife in a little deeper.