Ontario’s plan to outlaw $500 nosebleed seats has run into some trouble.
What happened: The province has fined resale platform SeatGeek $25,000 for failing to comply with its new ticket scalping law, which forbids the resale of any ticket for above its original face value. It’s the first penalty handed out under the law, which was passed in April.
Secondary marketplaces like SeatGeek and StubHub have voiced frustration with the lack of clarity around the law, including how they are supposed to confirm the verified face value of each ticket (the original tickets are rarely sold through these platforms).
Why it matters: Even with the $25,000 fine — likely a fraction of what SeatGeek makes from a single Blue Jays game — the Ontario law hasn’t been effective in deterring ticket markups. SeatGeek’s site currently has tickets listed for over 1,000% of their face value.
David Clement, the policy director at the Consumer Choice Centre, told CP24 that Ontario’s resale law is “unenforceable” and “very difficult, regardless of how much they may want to increase the fines, to actually implement in any serious way.”
Zoom out: Other provinces like Manitoba and Alberta implemented similar policies, but eventually abandoned them because they were too difficult to enforce. Quebec, which has the strictest ticket resale laws in Canada, has also struggled to tackle re-sellers — in 14 years, the province has only penalized one local company, Billets.ca.
Our take: This was a half-baked law passed right before the World Cup, when Canadians were particularly livid about ticket prices. It’s hard to see a scenario in which Ontario’s penalties become frequent and severe enough to genuinely deter platforms like SeatGeek.—LA
