Seeing A Movie This Weekend?
Select Cineplex and Landmark Movie Theatres are offering discounted adult admissions this weekend from August the 30th to September 3rd, 2019, at $6.99 per adult admission. Consult your local theatre for details.
Speaking of Cineplex, you should note that the Cineplex Free Digital Movie Rental Promotion is still active and available to people who purchase select Samsung 4K and 8K televisions until November 7th, 2019.
Canadians who take advantage of that offer will get one free digital movie rental per week, for a year.
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Ticketmaster Settles
Ticketmaster L.L.C., TNow Entertainment Group, Inc. and Ticketmaster Canada LP has agreed to pay $4.5 million dollars to settle the Competition Bureau’s case against them for misleading prices, according to a news release that was issued today by the bureau:
“As part of a consent agreement registered with the Competition Tribunal, the companies will also establish a compliance program to ensure their advertising complies with the law and will implement new procedures to prevent advertising issues in the future.”
The Bureau had concluded that Canadian consumers were paying 20% to 60% more than the advertised price due to fees, which were mandatory. And had decided to sue Ticketmaster and several other associated companies on January 25th, 2018 (PDF).
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Ontario Event Ticket Update
The provincial government of Ontario has removed the price cap on resold tickets in that province and increased fines for violators of the Ticket Sales Act, from $10,000 to $25,000.
The prohibitions related to scalper bots remain but the requirement for sellers to disclose the number of tickets they have available has also been removed.
The newly elected government had paused the implementation of the act in July 2018 and had promised consultations.
Click here for the Consumer Protection Ontario site on “Buying tickets to events in Ontario”.
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Ontario Scalping Law on Hold
The current Ontario provincial government has placed the Ticket Sales Act on hold, pending review.
This new law would have been active on Canada Day and would have regulated the resale of tickets in the province of Ontario, as described by this October 6th, 2017 blog entry.
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Ticketmaster VS Bots
According to the Financial Post, Ticketmaster will be introducing two methods to counteract the use of bots this year.
The first will involve the gradual release of tickets, which will make it harder for scalpers to buy large amounts at one time. And the second will involve a service name Verified Fan that confirms a fan’s interest in particular events and sends these fans codes to purchase tickets.
Both have been tested in 2017 with some success and enabled Ticketmaster to observe patterns in the purchasing of tickets by scalpers, which in turn helped them to take legal action against them.
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Anti-Scalping Legislation Introduced
New legislation was introduced to the Ontario Parliament yesterday to prohibit the use of ticket bots, software that enables the mass purchase of concert and event tickets.
Schedule 3 of Bill 166, a.k.a the Strengthening Protection for Ontario Consumers Act, will enact the Ticket Sales Act, which will replace the Ticket Speculation Act and essentially cause automated ticket purchasing software to become illegal for events in the province of Ontario.
Also included in the Ticket Sales Act are provisions capping the resale price of tickets at 50 percent above face value, regulations in regards to transparency (mandatory disclosures of the identity of the seller, number of tickets in the seller’s possession, and original ticket price) and regulations in regards to mandatory residency and/or incorporation in the province of Ontario for ticket sellers.
Click here to read the proposed legislation, in full.
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