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Following is a question by the Hon Starry Lee and a written reply by the Acting Secretary for Home Affairs, Ms Florence Hui, in the Legislative Council today (May 21):
Question:
Section 6(1)(b) of the Places of Public Entertainment Ordinance (Cap. 172) provides that any person who sells, or offers or exhibits or has in his possession for sale, or solicits the purchase of, any ticket authorising admission to any place of public entertainment licensed under this Ordinance at a price exceeding the amount fixed by the proprietor or manager of such place or by the organiser of the activity held therein shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine of $2,000 (such tickets are commonly known as "scalped tickets"). It has been reported in some social networking web sites that in recent years, ticket scalping syndicates hire large numbers of South Asians to queue up overnight at various ticket selling points for buying tickets for scalping. This shows that ticket scalping activities are becoming more organised and sophisticated in division of labour. It has also been reported that the penalty against ticket scalping is too lenient, which is far from adequate to curb such activities. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) of the respective numbers of reports received and prosecutions instituted by the Police about ticket scalping activities, the number of persons convicted for carrying out such activities, the penalty imposed on such persons in general, as well as the total value of the admission tickets involved, in each of the past three years;
(2) of the numbers of reports on ticket scalping received and prosecutions instituted by the Police about ticket scalping activities in respect of the soccer exhibition match between Kitchee and Manchester United held in July last year, the Hong Kong Sevens held in March this year, and the concert by the Taiwanese band Mayday held in this month; the number of persons convicted for carrying out such activities, the penalty imposed on such persons in general as well as the total value of the admission tickets involved;
(3) whether it has conducted any study to find out if ticket scalping activities has become more organised and sophisticated in division of labour in recent years; if so, of the outcome;
(4) whether police officers disguised as customers (commonly known as "covert operations") were deployed in the past three years to combat ticket scalping activities on the Internet; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; whether it will step up law enforcement actions by, for instance, increasing the frequency of "covert operations"; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that;
(5) whether it will review the penalty for ticket scalping to enhance its deterrent effect; and
(6) whether it will make reference to the relevant practices on the Mainland and encourage organisers of mega events to sell their tickets by way of "real name registration", under which ticket purchasers are required to provide the names of the entrants for printing on the tickets at the time of ticket purchase, and ticket holders whose names are different from those shown on the tickets will be denied entry, so as to curb ticket scalping activities; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
(1)&(2) The Police does not maintain such figures.
(3)&(5) In respect of any place of public entertainment, such as cinemas, licensed under the Places of Public Entertainment Ordinance (Cap. 172), any person who sells, or offers or exhibits or has in his possession for sale, or solicits the purchase of, any ticket or voucher at a price exceeding the amount fixed for such a ticket or voucher shall be guilty of an offence. A place that is under the management of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) is exempted under the Places of Public Entertainment (Exemption) Order (Cap. 172D).
All venues under LCSD are managed by the LCSD in accordance with the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance (Cap. 132) and its subsidiary legislation. Pursuant to the relevant regulations, no person shall sell any article in the venues without authorisation. Venue staff will advise anyone found doing so to cease the activity and leave the venue. Assistance will be sought from the Police as and when necessary.
In hiring LCSD venues for their events, programme organisers usually prefer selling their tickets through the Urban Ticketing System (URBTIX), taking into account their commercial considerations as well as their promotion and sales strategies. As a ticketing agent, the URBTIX makes ticketing arrangements as instructed by the programme organisers, including the limit on the number of tickets per purchase for individual programmes.
The Government will keep monitoring the situation closely with a view to curbing illegal ticket scalping activities.
(4) The Police will, generally speaking, follow up on reported cases or complaints about ticket scalping and take enforcement actions, including "sting operations", as appropriate to combat illegal ticket scalping activities.
(6) The LCSD considers that there will be great difficulties in the operation and monitoring of the "real name registration" for the purchase of mega event tickets if introduced. For instance, public views have to be taken into account as the proposed registration system involves sensitive personal data; and the feasibility of such registration in practical circumstances also needs to be considered. Currently, on-line sales only make up a small portion of total ticket sales as against box office sales or manual sales conducted by organisers through priority booking or internal sales. Such being the case, the implementation of "real name registration" will affect the operation of ticketing service provided by ticketing offices and organisers, possibly causing problems such as swarming at the time of admission.
Moreover, it is believed that programme organisers will be reluctant to adopt ticketing by way of "real name registration" in anticipation of possible adverse effects of ticket sales arisen from ticket purchasers' reservations and concerns about such a ticketing mode.
Ends/Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Issued at HKT 12:29
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