Quebec wants to stop sky-high prices from ticket resellers. It won't be easy

Pat Coveney is a lifelong hockey fan, in particular a fan of the new PWHL team in Montreal.

"They're doing fabulous. I have not missed a game on TV," the 67-year-old retiree told CBC in a recent inter‐ view.

Coveney would love to see a game in person, especially since he lives in Verdun, just steps from the arena where the Montreal team plays some of its games.

So far that's proven a challenge. Coveney has tried to buy tickets online, but they sell out quickly. He's even walked down to the arena to see if he could get tickets in person, but no luck.

Coveney thought the up‐ coming game for the team Saturday at the Bell Centre might be his chance. But those tickets sold out within minutes, only to appear on resale sites at inflated prices the same day.

"The tickets have skyrock‐ eted. They're $500 to $1,000 for one ticket," Coveney said.

Increasingly in Quebec, fans such as Coveney are feeling priced out of live events. The CAQ government has promised to tackle the complex problem, even though other provinces have tried and largely failed.

High ticket prices the new norm

The Bell Centre PWHL game is just one example of recent, vastly inflated prices for resold tickets.

In March, music fans in Quebec city were angered af‐ ter prices for passes for the popular Festival d'été de Québec werejacked up on re‐ sale sites just hours after they went on sale.

In February, tickets for the CF Montreal soccer game against Inter Miami featuring superstar Lionel Messi were selling for as much as $10,000 a piece on some re‐ sale sites.

And last December there was an incident that the CAQ government described as "the straw that broke the camel's back" after the death of Karl Tremblay, lead singer of the immensely popular group Les Cowboys Fringan‐ ts.

Free tickets for a memori‐ al for Tremblay at the Bell Centre were posted on resale sites for as much as $500 just hours after they were distrib‐ uted.

That prompted the CAQ government to give MNA Kar‐ iane Bourassa a mandate to study the problem of inflated ticket resale prices and pro‐ pose solutions.

Bourassa declined to comment for this story, say‐ ing she was still meeting with various groups to discuss the issue.

Ticket-buying process increasingly opaque

Quebec first adopted a law on ticket resales in 2012.

"Basically, the law says it's not permitted for a merchant to resell a ticket for a higher price than the price that was first advertised, except with the producer's consent," Sylvie De Bellefeuille, a lawyer with Option Consom‐ mateurs, told CBC in an inter‐ view.

Individuals, however, can still resell a ticket at any price they choose.

That's where ticket resale sites - such as Billets.ca or Stubhub - come in. They act as brokers between individ‐ ual buyers and sellers - kind of like Airbnb but for tickets. (Quebec has also struggled to introduce effective rules for that platform.)

The sites themselves earn a commission, but since they're not the ones directly reselling the tickets, they're not technically breaking any laws.

The law also prohibits re‐ sellers from using online software (bots) to purchase large bundles of tickets when there's a limit imposed on the number an individual can purchase. Despite this prohi‐ bition, bots are increasingly sophisticated and still a large problem in the resale market.

Complicating matters fur‐ ther is the fact that Ticket‐ master, by far the largest global player in ticket sales, also acts as a broker, having set up its own resale plat‐ form. And Ticketmaster is in hot water after a CBC investi‐ gation revealed the company was working with other re‐ sellers to inflate ticket prices even further. That resulted in several lawsuits, some of which are ongoing.

Another wrinkle: pro‐ moters of concerts and sporting events are now fre‐ quently introducing various levels of exclusive presales for select fans who obtain ac‐ cess codes before tickets are put up for general sale. It's often not clear to presale buyers how many tickets might still be available.

"It creates a vibe so that maybe people will be willing to pay a higher price if they feel that there's a limited amount of tickets available," De Bellefeuille said.

It all makes for a very con‐ fusing landscape for the con‐ sumer.

Class-action lawsuit Some of these issues are at play in a class-action law‐ suit Option Consommateurs is trying to get approved against Quebec ticket broker

Billets.ca.

The lead plaintiff in the case, Nathalie Gravel, bought a ticket on the site in Septem‐ ber 2022 to see a show by Quebec comedian Dominic Paquet.

Gravel had no idea it was a resale site.

"She didn't know because it really looks like a real site like Ticketmaster. She thought she was buying the tickets at the right place," Marie-Anaïs Sauvé, the lawyer leading the class ac‐ tion, told CBC in an interview.

It was only when Gravel attended the show three months later that she real‐ ized she'd purchased resold tickets - and that she'd paid almost double the face value.

The class action alleges that Billets.ca violated the law by not making it clear the tickets were being resold, not showing the original price and not obtaining the con‐ sent of the producer to charge more than face value.

The lawsuit also contends Billets.ca is more than just an intermediary between buyers and sellers.

"They pretend they're not a merchant. If they're not a merchant, the Consumer Protection Act doesn't apply to them. We strongly contest this," Sauvé said.

"They are an enterprise making money out of this business," she said.

The lawsuit is seeking compensation for the differ‐ ence between the face value price of Gravel's ticket and the amount she paid, as well as punitive damages.

Sauvé is inviting other people who've had the same experience to join the class action.

"We think there's thou‐ sands of people that bought tickets this way and we think that it's going to be an impor‐ tant case," Sauvé said.

The lawsuit has yet to be approved, and none of the al‐ legations have been tested in court.

Billets.ca declined to com‐ ment.

Other provinces have tried and failed

Other provinces have tried to find solutions to high ticket resale prices, and then been forced to backtrack.

Manitoba had a longstanding ban on any reselling tickets at higher prices, but the province lifted the ban in 2023, after finding it did nothing to stop out-ofprovince resales.

Option Consommateurs' De Bellefeuille said this will be a challenge for Quebec as it tries to come up with new rules.

"Sometimes platforms are in other countries. How do you manage that? How do you implicate a company who's situated in China or the United States?" she said.

Ontario tried capping the amount a ticket could be resold for at 50 per cent above original face value, but also backtracked, concluding

the rule was unenforceable.

WATCH | An inside look at how reselling works on Tick‐ etmaster:

De Bellefeuille agreed that approach likely won't work.

"How much is a ticket real‐ ly worth? If someone wants to re-buy something from an‐ other person, it's difficult to say whether there should be a cap or not," she said.

"If you're willing to pay three times the price I paid because this is a show you really want to attend, that's a person-to-person situation," De Bellefeuille said.

"But when it comes to websites and resellers, we think the law should be made clear that they do have a responsibility," she said.

Late last year a bipartisan group of U.S. senators intro‐ duced new legislation called the Fans First Act to protect consumers from high ticket prices. But that law includes mostly familiar measures that have already been adopted in various parts of Canada: more transparency, prohibiting bots, strengthen‐ ing penalties.

Fairness versus profit

De Bellefeuille said just because there's no easy fix to the problem doesn't mean governments shouldn't try.

She said the whole issue is really a question of fair‐ ness.

"I believe if a show is real‐ ly, really popular, and people are willing to pay a higher price, it's one thing," De Bellefeuille said.

"But creating a situation where people have to pay a higher price for a regular show just because all the tickets are bought or sold very rapidly, there's some‐ thing wrong about that," she said.

PWHL fan Pat Coveney has lost hope.

"I don't know if I'll ever get to see a game. It's too expen‐ sive. And I want to go, believe me," he said.

"The robots, or whatever you call them, the bots, they're buying blocks of tick‐ ets and the scalpers are sell‐ ing them and they mark it up. If it's not Ticketmaster, it's scalpers," Coveney said.

"They price themselves right out of the average guy or woman getting tickets," he said.

"Everything is about mon‐ ey and that's the problem," he said.