Welcome to the second panel of our hearings today. Mr Parsons, thank you so much for joining us; we are really grateful for you sparing us the time today. We on this Committee are conscious that there is an ongoing CMA investigation under way. We have not sought a sub judice waiver to get into the details of that investigation, so we will confine our questions to wider matters. Let me start with the first question I must ask you, which is: is Ticketmaster basically ripping off fans who just want to go and see the shows they love?

No, I do not believe so. In the services that we provide, we work closely with event organisers to be able to sell tickets at the prices they have determined in advance, after lots of consideration and thought. I do not think anybody should think that any artist, event organiser or theatre show—whatever it may be—has not gone into that without a tremendous amount of thought as to what that price may be. It is one of the great levers they have in terms of being able to sell tickets and make sure they can fill the rooms they need to. They are also very much invested in the long-term careers of artists to ensure they can go on touring on the road, where they now make a majority of their money, where that would have been recording in the past. A lot of thought goes into it and tickets are, in the main, very fairly priced.

When we looked at the ethical statements by your parent company Live Nation, we came across the fair dealing code, which says, “We are committed to maintaining the highest levels of integrity”. Do you believe your firm here in the UK is living up to that standard?

I do, yes.

You said to the DCMS Committee in 2018 that ticket scalpers have sometimes left fans “duped out of thousands of pounds, because they do not know the cost of the ticket until they get past the transaction page” Are you now guilty of the same sin?

I am pleased you have raised the resale point, and we are greatly encouraged that the Government have elected to take on this issue. Please remember—as I am sure you are aware but it bears repeating—that in those instances, any of the money being made by those who are able to access tickets and take them away is going to touts. Bear in mind that around 90% of the shows that we handle do not actually sell out. So it is good context to be considering the fact that the shows we are talking about in this area are the minority of those available at any given time.

The sin that you were criticising back in 2018 was the reality that many fans did not understand the final price they were paying until they got past that initial transaction stage. My question to you is: you are doing the same thing to fans today, are you not?

It is different because the resale sites will tend to—

How is it different?

I was just about to explain. One of the main reasons it is different is because, in many instances, those resale sites occupy the top of Google. They are directly dragging in consumers who are without any knowledge that they are not even the primary seller in most instances. You will have to forgive me, because I cannot remember the exact quote and what I was talking about at the time, but it is highly dubious that they can purport to be a legitimate seller for that event, and indeed use language within adverts to the effect that they are in some way an official seller when they are not. And that price is not the price that the artist has determined should be made available for sale.

If we look at the recent BBC investigation into Ticketmaster and in particular the Harry Styles tour, the BBC heard from one fan who said they had been enticed on to buy a ticket at £155, and when they got to the checkout, the price per ticket had gone up to something like £386. That is the same sin that you were criticising the scalpers for. It is a bait and switch, is it not?

I do not think it is, because we do not advertise prices in advance, typically. The price you see on our website, when they are made available for sale, is the price the artist has worked with us to determine it to be set at.

How does it go up once you get to put your credit card in then?

It does not. Maybe it will be useful if we actually talk to how our platform does work.

I am happy to come on to that but just explain to me how a Harry Styles ticket for £155 ended up at £386 by the time it came to checkout.

It does not change. The price that you see is the price you will end up paying.

It looks like it has changed. It looks like it has gone from £155 to £386. It looks like quite a big change.

It did not change, and I am happy to explain to you how and why. Many instances where dynamic pricing will be referred to—I am sure that has come up earlier today in the discussions you have had—relate to technology that is in some way reacting to market, surging on demand, driving tickets up relative to the amount of traffic there might be on the site. We can be quite clear that that is not how the Ticketmaster website operates. We do not change prices in any automated or algorithmic way. Prices are set in advance with event organisers and their teams at the prices they want them to be made available. In certain instances, some cheaper tickets that may be available will inevitably sell through most quickly, meaning that the tickets that fans see at a later point will be at a higher price. This can give the illusion that those tickets have changed price, but they have not. We can be very clear that there is no technology driving any price change, and the price you see on the Ticketmaster website is the price the event organiser wanted it to be, including all fees, and that is the only price that we will ever display.

Let us take a different example: Paul McCartney’s Got Back UK tour. The ticket prices were originally billed at between £30.95 and £182.95 for standard options, but fans have been sharing screenshots of ticket prices that go up to £429 and £592 for the show on Sunday 15 December 2024. That looks like another case where the ticket price has suddenly changed by the time it gets to checkout.

All prices are set in advance in conjunction with the event organisers. They are not changing. In fact, in most instances where prices do change—because they will over the life cycle of an event—they actually tend to go downwards rather than up, as whichever event it may be needs to ensure the event is selling through at the rate required. I would like to repeat briefly, if I can, that I very much understand why we are here and why there is the interest in the top-level prices that capture so much of the headlines. They are a small minority of the shows that we sell; in fact, research we have done shows that around 75% of the tickets we sell at the moment overall are under £35. So it would be misleading to take the view from this that all tickets are in some way overpriced.

We have a couple more examples, I am afraid. For the Lana Del Rey 2024 tour, 90% of tickets were fixed price, between £70 and £162.50; 10% of the inventory was sold at what was called a platinum level, where the prices were two and a half times the face value. Another report said that standing tickets went as high as £400. So again, it does seem on the face of the evidence that the price has been changing quite a lot over the course of the process.

The range of pricing is familiar to me, and I am quite sure that is right. The point I am trying to make is that those prices have not changed—there is no technology-driven change to those prices. They are the prices that humans have agreed to. There is no computer or bot behind it. They are prices that have been agreed and communicated. A great deal of thought would have gone into how and where they should be at, and they are set and changed by humans.

I just want to unpack that. You said the price has been changed by humans, so it is not necessarily an algorithm that is driving an increase in the price. Is it Ticketmaster employees who are jacking up the price as the demand rises?

It is very rare that a price would change during an on-sale. We work to the view that this should not happen.

I seem to have found quite a few examples.

The price would have been agreed in advance. It is not a price that will have been changed on the day; it will have been agreed with the event organiser and teams. It is important to understand why those prices sometimes reach those levels. We are effectively talking about different tiers of pricing that can operate at any given time. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that if we are not able to capture that value, which the artist is doing in those instances, then that money is going to go and the tickets will be captured and gobbled up by touts and made available on resale sites within minutes of an on-sale. When that happens, it is bad for fans. It is continuing to build out this secondary business, which makes no input back into the creative industries and nobody benefits from. We think it is absolutely right that artists should be able to price a small amount of the tickets at a higher price to be able to keep overall prices down and capture some of that value away from the secondary market.

But if we take artists who want to keep their prices down, like Robert Smith from the Cure, he said to his fans that he was “as sickened as you all” over Ticketmaster’s fees. He said they had sought to keep their prices down to about £16, but people were sharing screenshots of Ticketmaster’s shopping baskets with fees that were higher than the ticket prices themselves. So even where you have said that your ticket prices remain stable through the transaction process, it would appear that some people are getting a nasty shock with all the fees that are lumped on at the end.

All I can say to that is that all our fees are absolutely clear right from the outset, as they obviously should be, and there are no surprises in that regard. Any fees that are agreed in what is a very competitive market are set in conjunction with whoever is making those tickets available to us. Ticketmaster retains elements but we do not retain all that fee base, whatever it may be.

That would imply that artists like Neil Young are wrong. He said last year that artists have to now worry about ripped off fans blaming them for Ticketmaster add-ons and scalpers. Concert tours, he says, are no longer fun. Is Neil Young wrong?

I would not want to accuse Neil Young of being wrong about anything, but if I look at our average fee base within the UK—we have done some analysis on this recently—an average per-ticket fee within this country for a concert is around about 11% of the face value. We can all agree that that is probably pretty reasonable. There are a number of instances where there are other add-ons. Sometimes things such as venue facility fees will get conflated as part of the overall fee base. We do not retain any of that income. I think the fee base within the market is very reasonable.

It is said that Ticketmaster introduced dynamic pricing in 2022. If we look at the Live Nation accounts we can see that, thereafter, adjusted operating income on the ticketing business grew by £83 million in one year and the margins soared, not to 11% but to 40%. That sounds like profiteering, does it not?

I will have to repeat that Ticketmaster does not set the prices.

You just said that the average transaction fee in the market was 11%, but actually Live Nation’s operating unit for this business is operating at a margin of 40%, so four times that.

The 11% is a number relating to the UK business. You will forgive me; I am going to speak as managing director of the UK entity. If I look at the cost of ticket prices within the business as a whole at the moment, they are genuinely very reasonably priced. If I look at how costs have increased—

That is not what many fans would say.

As I understand, there is a lot of interest, focus and attention on that real top tier. If we look at arena ticket sales within the UK—those being the big productions, and what most people will associate with that concert experience—research we have done shows that ticket prices have only grown by around about £5 since 2018, on average. In an environment where inflation is far higher, with the cost to production and of delivering these shows, which are hugely beneficial to the economy given that on average about £150 is spent by every fan who attends one of these arenas, the actual cost to attend the shows has remained very static in real terms.

On this Committee we want the assurance that Ticketmaster is not behaving like a bunch of sharks and just profiteering.

Of course.

We want to get into some questions around dynamic pricing and whether it is basically exploiting a position of market power that you have built up through ownership of many parts of the value chain. Let me turn to Joshua Reynolds.

Mr Parsons, you have described Ticketmaster’s approach to dynamic pricing as “similar to…airline tickets and hotel rooms”. Could you explain to me very clearly the similarities between a concert ticket and a hotel room?

Prices vary and in any functioning market there will be instances where they go up and down. In my experience they are more likely to go down than up. I want to be clear once again, because it does bear repeating: we do not operate in the same way or use the same technology to function as the industries you just spoke of. There is no automation relating to price changes.

You said specifically, and your words were, that Ticketmaster’s approach to dynamic pricing is similar to airlines and hotel rooms.

When did I say that?

Those were the words of Ticketmaster.

The words of Ticketmaster?

Yes, and you are the managing director of Ticketmaster.

I am, yes. I do not remember having said that. I thought you were implying that I had actually said that. There probably was a period of time when it was useful to be able to make the association between the two, but I could not be clearer: we do not operate technology or interact with pricing in the same way that those types of services do. That is not how we work.

Does Ticketmaster make more money off a higher dynamically priced ticket from its original face value compared to what it might end up being? Do you make more money off that than a ticket at face value?

The money that we earn varies from contract to contract and deal to deal. Some will be fixed price; some might be, as you are alluding to, based on the price as a whole. So the answer would be that it varies.

Would you say there are a number of tickets and contracts that you have with artists where you would make more money on a dynamically priced ticket than a fixed-price ticket?

This is probably not a useful point, but we do not contract directly with the artist; we contract with an event organiser. In certain instances we may operate off a percentage base; in some instances it might be fixed.

The “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver has recently described Ticketmaster as “one of the most hated companies on earth”. As the managing director of Ticketmaster UK, why do you think that is?

It is because we have the great pleasure and joy of being the thing that connects fans with the thing they love the most. That creates a tremendous amount of passion, which is what helps us to come to work every day. That is why I enjoy working in the environment that we do. But it means that if people are not able to access the things they love, which is going to be the case when supply and demand come into play, that will generate, unfortunately, some ill feeling that we live with.

Do you think just not having the correct amount of supply would make Ticketmaster “one of the most hated companies on earth”? Ill feeling is very different from hatred.

I think if fans were always able to get the thing they wanted, there would be quite a different environment.

Who decides when dynamic pricing is switched on?

As I say, we do not control price. I have hopefully repeated it enough now to be able to get that across at least. Where differing price tiers are made available, that is a choice of the event organiser. We work with many artists and events of various types who are very happy to work from just a single tiered price. We also work with others who want to be able to combat resale and capture income away from resale and bring that back to the creative industries or the event organisers. So the answer is that it varies, and it will be in the build up to an event and tour going on sale.

You say the approach varies; does that mean sometimes it is not the event organiser that takes a decision on when to switch on dynamic pricing?

It is always the event organiser.

How does that work in practice? Does someone push a button on your Ticketmaster master control system that says “Dynamic pricing”?

These decisions are made in advance, where certain tickets are quite literally predetermined to be set at a price that might vary, so at the point of on-sale they are released to the varying prices that have been determined. I would just add, because you were talking about the build-up too and how this comes to be, that we are not completely removed from this in that we try to help event organisers of all types to make the right decisions. Everybody wants to get the price right. They want to sell at the price that works for them, that makes the event viable, which makes the UK a fantastic destination for touring. Everyone is trying to make the right decisions to balance all those things. We play a part in helping them have the insights and the knowledge to guide that price so that it does not have to change. If you have to change a price, actually, you got it wrong in the first place. We want to help them to have as much knowledge as possible to get that price right in the first instance.

What is the difference between platinum and dynamic pricing?

Platinum is the brand name, if you like, that we use to have a different tier of pricing relative to the other more standard pricing. Tickets are tickets; they are a way to have that different tier of price available.

I want to understand the journey from the point at which tickets go on sale to the point at which you, hopefully, for these particular arena shows, achieve sell-out. Am I right in understanding—you will correct me if I am wrong—that there is a plan for the prices at which different tiers of tickets will be sold in the course of that sale period? You hope not to have to change, but do prices change from their initial advertised price based on triggers about the behaviour of consumers during that period? Is that part of your plan in advance?

No, they do not change based on any triggers. As I say, more often than not, where a price will change it is more likely to be downwards over the ongoing cycle of an on-sale, because people have been perhaps a little too optimistic as to what that might be. Bearing in mind, again, that 90% of the shows that we sell for do not sell out, it is more likely they are going to need to go down than up in most instances.

You will understand that there are some raised eyebrows around the table. What you are saying to us is that there are a suite of advertised prices at a range of price points—maybe according to the extras that have been added on or the position in the auditorium; those types of factors—and those prices remain the same throughout the sale period. It is just that some prices may sell out, so only the more expensive prices may be left when people reach the checkout phase. Is that what you are saying?

It is, yes. There will be instances where event organisers would like to change prices, but we strongly urge them not to do that during any high-demand on-sale period where people are queuing.

You urge them and sometimes they ignore you, or you urge them and they do not do it?

I genuinely cannot think of any instance where we have had any resistance to that. It is not something people tend to want to do.

You will understand that we on the Committee have a number of testimonies from people who have attended or sought to buy tickets for various concerts and events where they feel they have evidence of prices changing during that purchase process. Are you are saying to us that that just does not happen?

Yes. I am saying that the prices are pre-set; the price does not change. Some lower prices will no longer be available, leaving higher ticket prices then available for fans who are joining later.

We are going to have many confused fans.

You said the 11% is the fee that you present on average. Is that correct?

We looked at the averages for booking fees. There is a face value and a charge that is placed on top, and that is the average fee.

What is the top limit that you have on a fee? If 11% is the average, what is the highest fee you would charge?

I would have to come back to you on what the highest one is. I would not like to speculate, but it is probably around 15% or something to that effect as a per-ticket fee.

Would you be able to give us written evidence to show the data?

Yes, sure. No problem.

With what the Committee is coming back with and the testimonies we have had, it sounds like there is a discrepancy in terms of how the fees are being put in. You say it is only 11%. I understand on average your ticket is only around £30, but there must be something going on during this period between them pressing the button and then getting to payment that their fees are going up. I wonder whether there is more than 15%.

Categorically, there is no change in fee. What they see from the outset is the fee they will be charged all the way through. There are a range of fees. That is the average. By definition, there will be some that are higher on that basis. In terms of the higher rates, I cannot remember the number. I think you said it was something like 20% or 30%.

The operating margin on your parent company is 40%.

Sorry not that, the fee that was being talked about earlier. In certain instances, different charges are being levied. A venue facility fee may be added, which we do not set or take or have any position in. When it comes to the final amount of fees that a customer or fan is charged, they will see those all together.

We can check that with you by way of follow-up.

Yes.

In your opening remarks, you said that Ticketmaster does not rip off its customers. I am sure music fans around the country hearing that will be very surprised to learn that. In fact, you may be aware that, among many fans, the company is referred to as “Ticket Shysters”. It is not a term I am familiar with personally, but is that something that resonates with you? Why do you think that would be?

As I mentioned to the Committee earlier, it is a very passionate industry that we work in. People feel an incredible closeness to the artists, and we understand and respect that. We work very hard—tirelessly, in fact—to provide a safe and secure environment where fans can purchase their tickets.

I am interested to know what information the company uses when determining its price. What data would you use to help to establish the price for a particular consumer?

Again, I am guilty of repeating myself, but we do not set the price.

You set a base price with the venue. You have explained that you set a base price.

We do not set a price. We are instructed on a price by the event organiser. In certain instances, we will help them to take a view on what that price may be, based on signs of what the level of demand might be, the amount of traffic—

If I may say, we are getting bogged down in semantics. Between you and the venue, you establish a price, let us put it like that. Then you have other prices that seem to come into play according to demand. I am interested to know what data helps to drive the movement in price during the period those tickets are available for sale.

You will forgive me, but it is not semantics to be saying who is setting the price. I think that is one of the things we need to be really clear on.

You agree a price with the venue.

We are instructed and given what that price will be. That is a clear distinction.

It is not a discussion; it is a one-way conversation.

Yes.

They say, “Mr Parsons, the price is this,” with no negotiation?

In terms of the face value of tickets, yes.

Do they tell you what the top level price is—the platinum price?

The event organisers do, yes. We make decisions with the event organisers at all times.

You make decisions with the event organisers. That is what you are now saying. Ticketmaster makes decisions with the venue. That is what you just said.

The event organisers make the decisions relating to price.

You are correcting yourself. The point is, when it comes to driving the price, the consumer sees the price moving. Is there any use of consumer data—cookies and so on—in establishing the price for that particular consumer?

No.

Whether the companies are owned by Live Nation Entertainment or not, does the pricing in resale markets have any influence on the price of the dynamically priced primary sale tickets?

In my experience, they will typically far exceed the prices that are available within what we would call the primary market—the first instance where tickets have been priced.

But are they linked in any way through any algorithm?

No, they are not.

To be clear, there is no user information, such as prior purchasing patterns or demographic, used in setting dynamic pricing?

No.

We have heard from upset consumers about the process they have been through when purchasing tickets on Ticketmaster. What is the argument for allowing event organisers that retail through your platforms to use dynamic pricing?

There are a number of reasons. Earlier, we spoke to the fact that the relative cost for the majority of tickets is actually pretty low, and consistently under inflation in an environment where costs continue to rise all the time for their delivery. A small amount of tickets might be priced at a higher tier, which seems fairly reasonable to me. On top of that, there is this ongoing challenge, which the Government have recognised and are seeking to take on: where tickets are underpriced relative to what the market shows they could otherwise be sold for, touts, brokers and resale sites will take advantage of that and that money will go elsewhere. We think it is right that we support event organisers who want to take a position in that and ensure that money is captured and does not go into a burgeoning resale market.

Would it not be fairer to advertise the premium prices of the tickets to the consumers initially, so that when going on to a website they can think about and budget for how much they expect a ticket to be?

We have made some changes to how we show prices within queues, and that is one thing we can do: make sure the price is shown earlier. We will all benefit from the fan being able to make a decision as to whether or not they are interested in paying the price that is going to be available to them. It is worth bearing in mind, again, that we are talking about a small proportion of the events at any given time. I have mentioned before that 90% of our events do not sell out. Overall, this is a small proportion of the shows that we are focusing on.

It is a small proportion but a lot of money still.

Good afternoon. I want to ask about market share. What do you estimate your market share in the UK to be in festivals and top box offices?

I would not like to say, but we can provide some further—

I am going to read you the market shares that I understand—just Google stuff. On festivals, back in 2018 you had more than a quarter of the market share in the UK; for venues, it was 46% of the top 61 venue box offices in the UK. Does that sound unlikely, likely, or roughly on target?

It seems high to me.

On ticketing, our data says it is 40% to 50% of the primary ticketing market and that you own two of the top four secondary ticketing companies in the UK. Does that sound accurate?

No, we do not own any secondary ticketing companies.

What about Get Me In! and Seatwave?

They were both closed in 2018.

Okay, that is helpful. Thank you for that. So there is nothing in the secondary market; what about the primary market?

That is as competitive as any market in the world. I could not give you a share, but while we may be the largest, it is an incredibly competitive business that we operate in. If I look at the arenas that operate in the UK, we provide ticketing services for maybe three of the largest arenas in the UK. We have a less than 50% share of the major buildings.

Let us say these numbers are correct, so festivals are 25% or more, top 60 venues are 46% and ticketing is 40% to 50%. You have massive vertical integration and dominant market share between operating the venues and running the ticketing. To me, that looks like something the CMA should be looking into and doing a market investigation on. Do you not think so?

That is not something I recognise. I am here as the representative for Ticketmaster within the UK. We have clear divides between how we operate on a daily basis. As I say, it is an incredibly competitive market within the UK.

But do you not recognise those market shares? Do you think they are just wrong?

I do not work in that side of the business, so I genuinely do not know whether those figures are right or not.

Is there any possibility that venues, event organisers and artistic management that may be owned by Live Nation are negotiating with you about ticket prices?

Could you repeat the question?

Your sister company, Live Nation, is also in this line of business. We are trying to understand whether another part of your group owns assets such as venues, such as event organisers, and is working with you to set prices.

Where parts of that business are the event organiser, which they will be as you say in certain instances, then, yes, they are part of what will determine the price, albeit in conjunction with the artists with whom they have to agree and make those decisions. But we are one remove from that. We take instructions from the event organiser, which could be Live Nation or a whole multitude of other parties.

Let me make sure I have understood this: one part of Live Nation could be negotiating with another part of Live Nation about what a ticket price ought to be.

Not negotiating in that sense. They will be the event organiser in certain instances. That is their role in the market.

Let me rephrase it then: one part of Live Nation could be dictating the price to another part of Live Nation. That sounds like a conspiracy.

I do not think it does. No event organiser makes the decision in isolation; they make it with a whole bunch of other stakeholders who come together to make any event happen. Obviously, the artist is a very key decision maker and stakeholder in that discussion.

In order to understand Live Nation’s market share in event management, event organisation, event promotion, artist management and venue control, we would need to speak to your colleagues in Live Nation.

I cannot speak to the market share of that business as a whole.

I am not really sure what to comment on in that data. I do not see the impact of that. I see a very well functioning, competitive market that takes place every day, and we operate at a degree of separation from the rest of that business as we would with any other event organiser or partner.

We are our own separate business. We have our own reporting lines that we operate separately from.

No, there is no collaboration in any more of a sense than there would be with any other event partners that we operate with.

We have asked many questions and spoken about dynamic pricing, which you said you do not do. I would like to understand more about how the queue is operated when tickets go on sale for really popular artists, because that seems to be where a lot of this information is coming from—that point where somebody has been successful and chosen their ticket. What technology is being used to assign people the opportunity to purchase? How does that work? Is that an algorithm? Does it have data behind it? What is happening during those minutes where people are waiting? For example, I was just having a look on the website and there is a 12-minute purchase window for a ticket where I am not in this expectation of purchasing. They are there; they are clear. I can see that. But if I am waiting to purchase a ticket, that is where there is a lack of transparency. Are you able to provide more information on that process?

Bear in mind that it is a very small number of events that need to have a queue, which is a necessity in certain instances because of the level of demand. Bots, which are into their millions, are attacking us at any given time. That is why there needs to be a queue in certain instances. Where there is a queue, we have what we call a lobby area, which is a waiting area before you enter the queue. When you enter the queue, your position within that queue is made available. There is no algorithm as such; there is a place assigned to you and then you reach the end of the queue and have the opportunity to shop and see the full store that is available. The queue is there to protect the access to the shop and ensure that it functions in the way we need it to so that fans can make decisions based on location and/or price and find the ticket that they want.

In the time from when they select that ticket to when they go through to purchasing, which might be that same 12-minute window, is there a likelihood that the ticket they chose is sold out, and therefore that when they get to the end a substitute ticket is put in that might be higher?

No. That is a really good point you raise. At that point in time, the ticket they have been able to access, that was made available to them at that price, is then held for them. It is for this reason that we have the 11 minutes you refer to, because that ticket is on hold during that period of time. In certain instances, we have bots and attacks that quite deliberately hold tickets in that way. We call it denial of service, where they try to manipulate the market so that fans have to purchase from the resale marketplace where tickets are not being held. So the 11 minutes is a necessity, because that ticket is held at the price they wanted during that period of time. They can go backwards again, but the ticket is held at the price they selected, and there will be no change to it.

What are your thoughts on capping the resale price of a live entertainment ticket?

As I mentioned earlier, we greatly welcome the Government seeking to take a position here. It inflates prices to the rest of the market and it has a negative impact at the primary on-sale, where it is creating all the pressures and steps we have to take, like the queues, to protect the site. We absolutely think there should be steps taken to cap that price. We operate, and have done since 2018, our own resale site. We stopped market price selling and operated off a price that you paid model—so it is the price including any fees that you might have. I know the submissions categorised different subsets. We believe 30% is definitely too high, as it still gives the opportunity for touts to be able to run a business in that manner, so we do not think it should be that. We are still debating the matter at the moment. We think probably the 10% to 20% number offers some flexibility for fans, but we are still reviewing it at the moment. But there should be a cap.

Mr Parsons, that has been incredibly illuminating. Thank you very much indeed. There will be many people who are still left somewhat mystified by their experience of using Ticketmaster, but you have given us some great insights into the way the business operates. We are grateful for your time today and for your evidence. That concludes this panel.